~basil » crochet

I only really got into crochet by accident, because I wanted a blanket and something to do. So I'll admit that I don't really have any pressing desire to make anything complicated, or ornate, or even special. In hindsight, I'd have been much better off just buying a cheap polyester blanket, but where's the fun in that?

So I ordered some cheap yarn and even cheaper crochet hooks online, watched a few YouTube videos to figure out what I was doing, and got on with it.

The Grey Blanket

My first project was a simple granny square blanket, started in November 2021 and finished before Christmas. It's made with Hayfield Bonus Aran, an 80/20 mix of acrylic and wool in "Forge" grey. Aran weight is a US medium, and I decided on a 10x10 square blanket which worked out to about 120x120cm (or 48" by 48".)

Christmas 2022: The Nieces

For my next project I wanted to make something for my two young nieces, and I settled on a matching-but-not-identical pair of blankets. I wanted them to have one each, and for them to be visually different, but still clearly a pair.

I stuck with the same granny square template but went up a yarn weight, to Hayfield Bonus Chunky Tweed, and this time in a couple of colours, Pool and Indigo. I haven't measured the final dimentions yet (I must remember to do that before they go to their new homes at Christmas!) but each blanket is 6x9 squares.

[photos to follow after my nieces have them!]

Grey Blanket II: The Winter Strikes Back

After completing the blue blankets for my nieces, I started to think about what I wanted to make next. I contemplated pushing myself with something a little more complicated than Just Another Blanket, but I had a small-but-not-insignificant stash of the grey yarn left over and with winter kicking in, the cost of heating my house began to skyrocket.

So I've decided to use up that yarn stash, as well as ordering even more of the same yarn, and dramatically expand the size of the grey blanket - from 10x10 squares to 16x16, which should take the blanket up to about 200x200cm or over 72" by 72". This, however, will involve making over 150 extra squares, so I don't expect this will be a speedy one. Watch this space!

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