Another blanket for another baby
A few months ago a friend I lived in college with when we were undergraduates announced her first pregnancy. Of course, this meant that I could start crocheting another baby blanket!
I do love making baby blankets. Crochet is quite a fast craft anyway, as the fabric it produces grows quickly, much more so than knitting, I find. By their nature, baby blankets are quite small, so it's a project that can be finished in a relatively short space of time.
It was a straightforward pattern to follow, a two-row repeat that is easy to pick up. Like the Attic24 ripple pattern it was quite soothing to do, back and forth with those lovely shells. Changing colour every row meant there were quite a lot of ends to sew in, never my favourite bit.
But I am very pleased with how it turned out, it's now been wrapped in tissue paper and a big envelope (the largest the Post Office had) and should be arriving in its new home any day now. I hope its new family gets lots of use out of it in a few months when the baby arrives (and in the mean time, it would make a lovely lap blanket!).
As an added bonus, this blanket was mainly made using yarn in my stash, so I only had to buy a few more balls - this means less yarn I need to pack and move to the new flat! It also worked out quite cheaply, as I had the yarn left over from other projects. Of course, you can't really put a price on handmade, I don't want to work out the cost if I added up the yarn plus minimum wage for each hour I spent on it! I enjoyed making it, I hope the recipient likes it, and they're the main things.
I do love making baby blankets. Crochet is quite a fast craft anyway, as the fabric it produces grows quickly, much more so than knitting, I find. By their nature, baby blankets are quite small, so it's a project that can be finished in a relatively short space of time.
The past few blankets I've made have been patterns from the lovely Attic24, but this time I wanted to do something a bit different. A quick search on Ravelry led me to this Beachcomber blanket. As I said in an earlier post I've used six shades of Stylecraft Special DK (Sunshine, Magenta, Aster, Cloud Blue, Wisteria and Aspen) and I did a simple border of dc sts in Cream. Using a 4mm hook I used roughly a ball of each of the six colours (hard to judge accurately, as I used what I had in my stash before buying more, and I forgot to weigh the yarn or the blanket at any point) and just a little bit of yarn for the border. The blanket is approximately 70cm x 90cm.
It was a straightforward pattern to follow, a two-row repeat that is easy to pick up. Like the Attic24 ripple pattern it was quite soothing to do, back and forth with those lovely shells. Changing colour every row meant there were quite a lot of ends to sew in, never my favourite bit.
But I am very pleased with how it turned out, it's now been wrapped in tissue paper and a big envelope (the largest the Post Office had) and should be arriving in its new home any day now. I hope its new family gets lots of use out of it in a few months when the baby arrives (and in the mean time, it would make a lovely lap blanket!).
As an added bonus, this blanket was mainly made using yarn in my stash, so I only had to buy a few more balls - this means less yarn I need to pack and move to the new flat! It also worked out quite cheaply, as I had the yarn left over from other projects. Of course, you can't really put a price on handmade, I don't want to work out the cost if I added up the yarn plus minimum wage for each hour I spent on it! I enjoyed making it, I hope the recipient likes it, and they're the main things.
Where do I start learning how to crochet? Genuine question. I love the idea of being able to make blankets.
ReplyDeleteIdeally, find someone to teach you in person, as that's so much easier. Alternatively, do what I did and learn from a book/the internet! My mum bought me a book which was good, and taught me the basics, but I got confused with anything harder. Then I discovered the Attic24 blog which is fabulous. Even though she doesn't have a specific 'how to crochet' tutorial, all her tutorials for blankets, cushions, etc etc are photographed step by step, so you can learn right from the very beginning! There's also a difference in terminology, there are UK terms and US terms, so just check which one you're following. Hope that helps!
DeleteThanks! I really want to find someone to teach me but I don't know anyone who knits or crochets and I don't know if I (or they!) would have the patience for my perfectionism. I'm interested in how other people get into it in the first place, as it seems to be all over the blogspace.
DeleteCould you ask in your local yarn shop or haberdashery or somewhere similar if they know of anyone who runs classes? Otherwise youtube or online tutorials may be the best bet. You can't be a perfectionist right at the beginning, everyone has to start somewhere (although I know what you mean about wanting to get something right straight away!)! Hope you find something soon, crocheting is a great craft :-)
Deleteabsolutely gorgoues balnket :) i always see white/cream/pink/blue baby blankets so it is refreshing to see how beautifully bright and cheery the one you've made is! I bet it was with a great sense of satisfaction you posted that one off! nicely done - jenny xx
ReplyDeleteThank you very much! I do always try to go for bright colours for baby blankets (or just blankets in general!) unless the parents have suggested a particular colour. I'm not a fan of pink-for-girls and blue-for-boys so I try to steer clear of that. And white and cream for baby blankets, aren't babies and young children supposed to make a lot of mess?! White is just asking for trouble. The last blanket I made for a baby was in rainbow stripes, and the one before that was yellow. Bright and cheery! I did indeed feel a sense of satisfaction :-)
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