Sunday 13 October 2013

Crochet Baby Blanket - Granny Squares




The last few months have involved me getting into mountain biking, something I haven’t really done in years and years, and as the weather has turned worse and the nights have gotten longer (and I finally realised how much I needed to rest a bursitis/tendonitis I have) I have gone back to my crochet.

I sort of lost interest in crochet over the summer. I think I was just restless to do other things, and while I couldn’t do everything I wanted to thanks to the bursitis/tendonitis, it didn’t stop me wanting to!! I also think that I need to have a project with a purpose – I do see a lot of beautiful things that I like, but if they don’t have a genuine purpose then I can’t bring myself to spend the money and the effort… And this is where other people’s happy news comes in very handy!!

A guy I’ve been working closely with over the last few months is to become a father again! He already has a little daughter, and the other week he and his wife found out that their next baby will be another little girl.



I had a stash of Stylecraft Special DK that I had bought from Deramores after reading about so many others who have loved it, and I picked out all of the ‘girly’ colours that I had – pinks, white and a yellow, 6 in all. I opted for a classic Granny Square blanket, as I think they are a bit of a timeless classic. I just added a slight twist to the pattern by doing each colour for 2 rows. I had seen some variations on this while browsing Pinterest, and I thought it would just make it a bit more modern looking (not being sure that the recipients would be into Granny chic!) I also did these joining them on the go, as I haven’t yet attempted sewing or crocheting squares together.





I kind of agonised over the colour pattern – I don’t seem to be all that good at planning colours, and this was going to be only the second time I had planned the colours in advance rather than going randomly. When you join as you go you do need to make sure you get things in the right place!  In the end I put the balls in a row, alternating as best I could between darker and lighter shades. Then I just made the colours graduate from the 1st colour, to 2nd, to 3rd, all along the rows. With 6 colours, 6 squares, and 3 colours per square, this technique gave quite a pleasing effect in the end – although I wasn’t totally happy with the colour combinations.




(Before ironing - I didn't get an after picture due to rushing)


To finish off I chose 3 colours I did like together, and went round in 2 rows of UK trebles and a final row of UK double crochet. Very simple, but a nice finish I thought. 





It was great to give this gift to someone who has been a fantastic colleague through some tough times, although we were both so shy that we ended up sitting in a bit of an awkward silence for a time afterwards trying to think of what to say to each other!! He didn’t know what to say in gratitude, and I didn’t know what to say back! In the end the tension was broken when he said that he really wished he could do something back for me to say thank you, and I suggested he make the teas :)




Something that rewarding should be repeated I think, and luckily another of my work friends is also pregnant! She doesn’t yet know whether they will have a girl or a boy, so I gathered together some colours that I thought would work either way, as they are more about the mum’s taste than being too gender-specific.


I also picked a new pattern for this one, but more about that later…


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