Can you ever have too many blankets?

I love crochet.  2013 was the year I learned to crochet properly, and over the last year I have grown to love this hobby more and more.

I started with Attic24's classic granny stripe.  It's incredibly popular, I've just had a look on Ravelry which has 3538 projects using this pattern!  I was also really pleased to discover that I could make a project as big as a blanket and that it didn't have to cost me a small fortune.  Yes, you can spend a small fortune on yarn and wool, but you don't have to.  The yarn I bought for my granny stripe blanket was just under £30, it's Stylecraft Special DK, 100% acrylic but so soft and so warm!  The whole blanket was a project I really enjoyed working on.

 Before too long, the blanket was big enough to keep me cosy on the sofa, and more than once I'd come into the living room to find my boyfriend underneath it!  I asked him, jokingly, if he wanted his own, to which he said no.  Then a few days later, when I asked him again, he said yes please, only in slightly less 'girly' colours.  So a quick look at Deramores Stylecraft Special DK colour options, he chose his colours and they were delivered in super-quick time.  I didn't enjoy making this blanket as much as I enjoyed making the first, probably because the colours are so dark (and as there are fewer colours in it, they repeat more often), but I did still enjoy it, and I became much better at things such as sewing in my ends as I went!

I now felt proficient enough at crocheting to give another pattern a go...so back to Attic24 and this time the neat ripple pattern (which has 4510 projects on Ravelry!).  I decided to make a single bed size blanket for my sister, and chose these colours (again, Stylecraft Special DK in, starting from just below the ripple at the bottom, Wisteria, Parchment, Fondant, Bluebell, Grape, Aster, Pale Rose, Lavender, Lemon). 

The border is one row of treble stitches in each of the colours.







The blanket on the right is a hexagon blanket (Attic24 again!), made as a Christmas present for my great-aunt.  I really love this blanket, and my great-aunt does too, which is good!  It's so bright and colourful, and just the right size for a lap blanket.

 I was browsing Ravelry one day, and saw that someone had made a Tetris blanket.  A Tetris blanket!  SUCH a clever idea, and so simple!  I've never been a great fan of computer games, but I have always enjoyed playing Tetris.  And now I could turn it into a blanket!  I searched for images of Tetris games, and the different coloured tetrominos (the shapes made of four squares).  I made a chart for which colours I'd need where, then using this pattern for solid granny squares I got crocheting!  There were a lot of squares, I think it's 10x15.  When I had all the squares, I went round them all with a row of single crochet in black, to give them their outline, and hopefully make it look slightly more like the game does onscreen.  Then came the arduous task of sewing them all together.  I did it each horizontal row at a time, continuously checking that I had the colours in the right order.  Then the border is three rows of treble stitches, black then grey then black.  It's now one of my favourite blankets, it's pretty much perfect single-bed size, so ideal for one person.  It's also been much admired by other people, one friend has decided to learn to crochet just so she can make her own!

So, that's my blanket collection.  Well, part of it!  I also have a couple of Slankets.  I know they're not the most elegant of blankets, but they are so practical - a large part of my thesis was written up whilst I was sitting at my desk wrapped up in one of these.

For the time being, I'm not going to make any more large blankets, as I think this flat does now have enough.  But quite a few friends are pregnant at the moment, so I'm still making blankets, just ones which are slightly smaller!

Right, time for a cup of tea and a sit down.  Underneath a blanket, of course.