A crochet blanket

I’m not very good at crochet.  My tensions is nice and even but I have so much to learn.  However I do find the rhythm of crocheting squares to be supremely relaxing.

I recently noticed a post over on The Patchwork Heart about a grey blanket.  For my taste a lot of crochet blankets are just too bright for me but this one was just my cup of tea – mellow blues and greens, a couple of brights and lots of grey.

I bought Heather’s pack from Deramores (my their service has improved recently) and unpacked it with great excitement.  Then I started to get scared.  There was no pattern, no order to crochet the colours in.  Yikes!  How do i make sure I don’t use too much of one colour and run out?  How do I make sure that I don’t repeat colours?  Oh help.

I needn’t have worried, because Heather has another post to help.  Basically she advises crocheting all the first rounds, a regular number in each colour.  Then you lay them out, dividing them between the yarn for the next round and so on.

I decided that, since there were 11 colours in the pack (not including the mid grey) I would do a blanket that was 8 squares by 11 squares.  This meant I had to crochet 8 rounds in each colour. Heather advises doing this in pairs.  This means that when you have done all the squares only 2 squares will be the same, which i reckon should really help with the final layout.

I discovered I had enough project bags to keep the squares with their yarn!  I clearly buy too much yarn.

On to round 2.

Round 3 is now complete.

And round 4.

After this round it’s on with the grey so I am nearly there. I was a bit worried that the brights were too bright but choosing a darker colour for the next round dampens them down. It has been such a pleasure to make this blanket and Heather’s advice was brilliant at helping my way through it.