I realised recently that I have now added three more blankets to my collection, bringing it up to a total of five. I know blankets take a long time to finish and get bulky and annoying, but I can’t help myself. I think it’s because I’m always cold that I feel the need to have warm snuggly blankets on hand at all times.
My problem then is that the cats also like snuggly blankets and lay on them, covering them with cat hair. And cat hair doesn’t really help when I’m trying to curl up in the blanket, as the hair tickles my face and nose constantly. This means I am now trying to work out where I can store my blanket stash so that they don’t get taken over by cats. So that means putting the blankets in a certain part of a certain cupboard where I know the cats can’t get into. At least these ones should look nice for a little while longer.
First up is my Granny Ripple Blanket. This one is Huge. It took ages because I needed to get more yarn for it then it got so massive that I decided to finish it up rather than use up all the yarn I bought. I’ll use the remainder to something else, some Not Huge. It’s a bit scratchy because there are little burrs in the yarn that I couldn’t be bothered getting out every time I found one, but it’s not that big a deal. I really like the pattern, it gives the ripple a pixellated look to it, and I am a sucker for granny stripes and squares. I would definitely make another one of these, though possibly not one so massive.
Second is my Star Ripple Blanket. This one started out as a straight Larksfoot stripe blanket, but with the red yarn the pattern made it look like pork chops rather than what I was expecting. I left it alone trying to get enthusiasm for it again, but the more I looked at it the more it didn’t look like what I wanted, so I decided to rip it apart and use the yarn for a different pattern, which is how I ended up with this. I ran out of the red on the last red stripe, so it took ages to get to the yarn store and get more so I could finish it up. It’s annoying that I don’t work in walking distance to my favourite yarn store any more, it means I can’t sneak there on my lunch break to buy things.
I tried to make it so that the black stripes get bigger each time, but that effect seems to be more subtle than I thought it would be and you can’t really notice it. Either way I still like it. It’s a good size and the yarn is really soft (the red yarn has been felted, so it’s nice and soft, and the black is cashmerino) so I feel like it will be a good snuggle blanket for winter.
Last up is my cotton Granny Hexagon Blanket. I made these hexagons ages ago (over a year ago? ugh, time goes so fast) and had them sitting in a box waiting for me to buy more of the coloured cotton to make more. By the time I made them all I had gotten sick of making the hexagons, so I ended up buying other yarn to make different things and the hexagons ended up sitting in a box. I was cleaning up a few months ago and found the box in my craft cupboard and realised I was probably not going to make any more of them so I might as well sew them up and make a finished blanket out of them just to finally get them out of the way.
The sewing took longer than I anticipated, but I got a nice little lap blanket by the end of it! I’m planning on taking it into work and using it to keep me warm in our freezing office. I still really like the red and mint combination, so I might try something similar with those colours in the future.
Looking at the hexagons makes me notice how inconsistent my tension was when I was making these, they were all different sizes even though the hook and the yarn was all the same. I hope that I’ve improved since then, but I guess I won’t really know until I do something with a bunch of motifs over time to compare them. I think that’s why I don’t really like join-as-you-go patterns, because at least sewing them all together later means I can arrange them so they fit a bit better.
I have been working on some motifs lately, and on other things that aren’t blankets, so I’ll post about them once I get a chance to take some good photos.