off the hook... the 'me' blanket

 

 

I'm cherishing these days with *J* being only eleven. The pre-teen stage; before I end up with two teenagers under one roof (help!). I've been prefixing his age with 'only' since he was very small. If *E* shouts at him I say, 'that's not necessary, he's only eleven!' She asked me the other day when I might stop using the 'only'. Good question. Later this year when he starts secondary school I suppose!

 

He's a generous soul and gladly nipped under my finished crochet blanket this morning, five minutes before he needed to be on his way to school. He observed that, 'even though it's got lots of holes, it's really warm!'

 

 

 

 

I've grown to love the half treble stitch (like a treble but you pull the yarn through 3 loops in one go). It worked well for this blanket edging, where dc would have been to dense and treble would have been too open. I think it also helped prevent wrist fatigue - I went round the blanket once in dc, then twice in blue htr, then once in white htr, then twice more in blue htr again. Heck that's 6 rounds. Goodness knows how many hundreds of stitches that was.

 

 

 

I edged the ends in zig zag; it seemed a good idea to keep it as a feature and I couldn't face trying to use different height stitches to even it up to a straight line. I haven't blocked or pressed it. I'm not planning to either, I'm happy with it the way it is. Simple, natural (well 63% wool anyway) handmade.

 

Here are some tips using what I learned along the way (advanced crocheters look away now!):

• Have a plan for what colour you might edge it in - after starting in red I decided to add some more rows to the start so that it began with blue - so that when I joined in the edging it was all in sequence and also joined neatly - this would be simple in straight rows but wasn't a good idea in granny zig zag!

• Lay it out on a flat surface often; I may have avoided ripping back 6 rows if I had done that!

• If you're not doing a random design it's best to make sure you have enough to complete the job. It's not difficult to work out how much wool is in a stripe - just weigh it before and after adding a new stripe and calculate the difference. I mention this because it seemed to 'eat' wool like there was no tomorrow.

• Finally, it's worth spending a little time planning a blanket, with a tape measure, wool and paper to hand. I jumped straight in but would have been a lot more confident if I'd planned it.

 

...and in case anyone is wondering, some woolly blanket facts and figures:

 

The 'me' blanket measures approximately 95cm x 135cm (37.5" x 53")

The blanket weighs 675g

The cost of the wool actually used works out at roughly £10-£12

I started it on Feb 29th and completed it 13th March. That's two weeks and there were days when I didn't find time to work on it.

 

 

 

Finally, the good news is that it really is going to be mine! Woohoo. I've negotiated this by promising *E* and *J* one each with wool they've chosen.