pebble beach mood board...

Little bit under the weather today so I snuggled under the 'me' blanket with all my bits and bobs nearby - roll of crochet hooks, dog, various piles of wool, a pile of pebbles...

If you've just tuned in, this previous post 'to the sea' will explain how I've come to be putting a mood board together for a blanket inspired by a sussex pebble beach.

I finally narrowed it down to hexagons on the basis that I like those traditional patchwork bedspreads. Something tells me that it would look more 'pebbley' if I used DK (as per smallest swatches above), but I know I'd get bored if it took too long and was too fiddly. The grey and cream hexagons are in aran weight. I'm going to dig out some chunky and work up a hexagon in that just so that I've explored all possibilities.

I've got various bowls and glass vases full of interesting pebbles but this weekend I'll have an opportunity to hand pick a few more, for colour reference. I realise my mood board is missing some bluey greys, some dusky pinks and some ochre. It's going to be a major challenge to find a wool range to meet my colour needs. I'd rather avoid acrylic if I can. It would be a good project for hand dyed wool - I have a book on this and it looks as though the colours I'd need are fairly easily achieved using basic ingredients. Those ochre tones could probably be done with onion skins. Far too much bother for me at the moment though. I already have enough creative pursuits going on for one house to cope with!

I've also done a few plain squares for *E*s sunflower blanket...

I keep squinting at this and wondering whether it would stitch together better like this or whether I should add another border round the sunflower squares and perhaps a yellow or green around the oatmeal squares. Either way this looks like an improvement on the original which was started very soon after I learnt to crochet and I was just buzzing with the fact that I could finally crochet so I didn't give much thought to how long a whole blanket of sunflower motifs would take!

I love being able to log my progress and create photographic mood boards. In my days as a graphic designer this used to take a while and usually involved A1 mounting boards and a can of spray mount. They'd have to be physically taken or sent by courier to the client. So much time was wasted back then!