Work in Progress – Peacock Blanket

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you might know that I’m working on a big crochet project. I found the pattern on Ravelry – it’s a beautiful Peacock Blanket, and it will take me some time to finish.

Is this a good time to mention that you can find all my social media links on the right side of the blog? Click on any of those black and white icons to see what I’m up to when I’m not blogging (hint: I’m crocheting).

Before I could start the blanket, I had to learn to crochet. Nothing like starting out with an easy one, right? Here’s a demonstration of how my skills have progressed:

The stitches on the left are the newest ones, where I’m starting to figure out what individual stitches look like, and how to crochet through the right parts of the stitch to get the finished result I want. The right hand side is looser, less even, generally a bit muddled. Progress! I might make another sample swatch before I start on the blanket proper, but for now I’m working on the feathers.

The blanket is made in two stages – one is blanket itself, in the pattern above (though neater, of course), and the other is the feathers, which are stitched evenly on to the reverse side. I’ll have to make 102 of these, a seemingly vast number. That said, I’ve made 14 in the last week – only another 7.2 weeks to go, at this rate. Plus blanket time… At present they take almost an hour apiece – I hope I’ll get faster as I go along. I think I might still be making my stitches too tight, they’re tricky to get the hook into. Still, they’re coming out well! They’re all a little different – while there’s part of me that would like exact uniformity, it’s nice to see a bit of character emerging in each feather. I love the colours.

I am still firmly in the ‘learn by doing’ camp, but I did have one practise run with spare yarn, after I’d spent some time on the practise swatch above. There were a lot of different stitches to learn – the blanket itself uses single and double crochet, multiple double crochets in the same stitch, and cluster stitches. The feathers use a magic loop, single crochet, double crochet, half double crochet and triple crochet. I mean… half double crochet. To the layperson, that makes no sense whatsoever. Luckily, the internet is there to help me through.

That’s as far as we’ve got. Hopefully the next time you see the blanket, I’ll have finished at least one part of the process. Stay tuned…

Knitted Fox Blanket

This was a Christmas present for Miss J – a Christmas present I started ten days before Christmas, and still finished on time. I felt like a hero. A tired, tired hero.

 

 

Admittedly I did have to finish the eyes on Christmas Eve. In the car. And, when we got there, do some final finishing. And then wrap it up secretly, without Miss J seeing, so I could put it under the tree. But still – it was technically finished on time.

 

 

Not only is is super adorable (who doesn’t love a wee sleepy fox face?), it also rolls up for easy storage and carrying around. Which is ideal because this, my friends, is a travel blanket. It’s designed to live in the boot of a car, and then if you get trapped in a winter traffic jam you can wrap it round you and keep cosy. Or if you have a sudden need to picnic, it’s also good for that.

 

 

Miss J passed her driving test last year, after taking SECRET DRIVING LESSONS – what a woman. She drives a Volkswagon Fox, so knitting something fox-based and car-related for her Christmas seemed to be the only sensible thing to do.

 

Ready for action!

 

The pattern was a combination of two existing patterns – this Lion Brand travel blanket, and this utterly gorgeous kiddies’ animal blanket by Terhi Viinikanoja – plus some creative thinking and a bit of maths, to work out how to get the size I wanted with the thickness of yarn I was using. I used Stylecraft Life Special Chunky wool, in spice and white, and knitted it all up on a 6mm circular needle – the circular needle was just to hold all the stitches, not for any fancy reason. The nose and eyes were made of double knit black wool I had in my stash – the nose was knitted separately, while the eyes were sewed straight on to the blanket with a tapestry needle. I finished with chunky wooden buttons, one of each colour. There’s something about an oversized button that’s so appealing, isn’t there?

 

That’s the whole fox blanket story – I am so pleased with it and I’m glad to say that, more importantly, Miss J is too. Look, here she is hiding behind it on Christmas day.

 

 

Hard to say which is sweeter, the blanket or the sister. Let’s call it a draw.

 

No wait it’s the sister it’s obviously the sister forget I said that…

Hearts Baby Blanket

Another blanket! But a really tiny one, this time, for a tiny human.

 

 

It started with seeing this plush baby wool. To coin a popular phrase, IT’S SO FLUFFY I’M GONNA DIE!

 

And now for a message from our not-sponsors: get 15% off and free shipping with Love Knitting. Yes, this is more or less an advert, but the post is not sponsored or in any way compensated by the company. I genuinely like them, and if you buy through this link I also get 15% off and free shipping. It’s a win/win situation. 

Back to our scheduled broadcast…

 

I mean, really. I was powerless to resist. Plus, the colours are pretty similar to the suffragette flag. Nothing like unnecessarily politicising your wool choices, that’s what I say. The yarn arrived and was just as soft and fuzzy as I’d hoped. Now I just needed to decide what to do with it.

 

I thought a blanket would be an excellent use, and let me tell you, there is no shortage of patterns for baby blankets. Wow. You could lose yourself for days among all the options. It’s possible that I know about that from experience. I got lost in Ravelry, I’m not ashamed to admit it.

 

I found this sweet heart baby blanket, and decided that was the one. Now, the whole crafting thing is a real learning curve for me – and for anyone else who learns by doing – so if I were to make this blanket again I’d do some things differently. For one, I’d use a less soft yarn. It’s beautifully cuddly, but the softness reduces the stitch definition. Given that this pattern relies on you being able to see what’s a knit and what’s a purl, that’s a bit of a drawback. Still, you can see the pattern, if not as clearly as I’d have liked. Call it a hidden feature.

 

 

I’d also make the blanket bigger. I wasn’t sure how much wool it would take me, so I was conservative in my plans. It turned out that I only used about half the wool I had. The rest remains in my stash for future baby knitting.

 

I cast on 110, for a border of eight stitches on all sides and four repetitions of the boxed heart motif, with dividing columns of six stitches each between them. It’s worth noting that the original pattern does have an error, and from row seven onwards it misses out those six knit stitches in between each box. It’s easy to add them in, and once you have knitted several rows you’ll start to see the pattern emerging, which will also help you to get it right. It’s worth making your own copy of the pattern, though, and reading from that to keep yourself right.

 

To make the blanket bigger, I would repeat the heart pattern another once or twice per row, and then just keep knitting until it was more or less square. I like patterns that are open ended like this: ‘knit until you want to stop knitting, and then stop’. Once you’ve got the hang of it – and the pattern’s only 30 rows long – you could go on indefinitely, though of course you may end up with the world’s most enormous scarf if you did that.

 

 

I ran the finished result through the washing machine, then stretched and pinned it out. After casting off, the blanket measured 33 inches wide and 29 inches tall. After blocking, it was 36″ square – quite an achievement! The stretching did flatten the hearts a little, though, so it was a payoff. It would probably have been better to knit it bigger, and not block it at all, unless it needed squared off.

 

The idea behind this pattern is really simple, and perfect for a beginner like me. I looked at a few patterns, some that would have been quicker than this one, but I’m glad I spent the little extra time on it. I love every one of the little boxed in hearts.