Frozen Fever!

 

Frozen fever has gripped me here!

Well, I say Frozen fever, I really just mean the colour-scheme…

Most of the people I know out here at the moment are other people who came over like we did, on our flights. We knew each other by sight having travelled on the same planes, so either we got talking while we were travelling or we have met up again since. Although there is a slight age mix, we almost all have in common that we don’t have children. In fact, only one of the couples I’ve met has a child, a little girl who is only 4!

Kids are so robust and adaptable, so she’s taking most things in her stride, but this will be her first Christmas away from wider family. Therefore, I thought I would try to help a little by getting her a few things, so that Christmas feels a bit more exciting to her.

This little lady loves Frozen apparently, and is always asking for Frozen stuff. Therefore, when I spotted these cute little Frozen Havaianas I couldn’t resist getting them for her! How sweet! (I’m a total sucker for mini shoes…)

Later on, in a store here called Big W (the closest UK equivalent I can think of to this is Wilkos) I found that they sell yarn. It’s not great yarn, and not in a brilliant range of colours unfortunately. But it was near to large stand of Disney books – lots of them Frozen ones – so I felt inspired to make a Frozen blanket for little lady. Blankets are not in great demand here at the moment, with the high temperatures and sticky humidity, but I thought that come the southern hemisphere winter it might get some use, and until then she can use it more like a rug (maybe I should call it a rug actually, rather than a blanket…)

Now I haven’t seen Frozen, so lots of looking through the books in Big W was required, and eventually I came up with a selection of 6 colours. They don’t have names on the labels, just numbers, but they’re only available in Big W stores apparently anyway…

The colours are: 1047 (the darker purple), 062 (lighter purple), 083 (pink), 077 (light blue), 1007 (turquoise), and 096 (minty green).

They are 100g balls, rolled differently to how I’ve seen before – I thought they looked odd at first, but having started to work with them, so far this way of rolling seems a lot neater and more compact than I’m used to, although the yarn itself is nowhere near as good as Stylecraft Special :(   

They also come with little patterns on the labels, so I picked up a crochet ripple one to see how it differs from the Attic 24 one, and also an Aussie knitted blanket one to send home to my mum. I got a few of each so that she can take them to her knitting group too.

As well as the colours, I wanted to something icy and twinkly, and I was in luck – they had another Big W exclusive yarn reduced. White, with silvery threads and sequins, it seemed perfect!

Back home, I used the mobile internet to conduct lots of, ahem, ‘research’ on Pinterest (not just lots of browsing, no no. Research.) I found a lovely Frozen blanket by Little Tin Bird, and had massive yarn envy!

It got me thinking about which colours I would use if I had access to Stylecraft in a shop here. I think I would go heavy on the Sherbert, plus Aster, Cloud Blue, Aspen and Turquoise. Then I would add in some Magenta, some Royal maybe? (I haven’t seen that colour in the flesh, but on-screen it looks similar to one of the character’s outfits) and maybe some Candyfloss. For the sparkles, Stylecraft does a lovely twinkly range called Stars, with metallic thread and sequins. They have a white one, Stellar, but they also have a gorgeous looking one in Aqua. I’d need to look at them and see which I thought would work best :)   

If you're not into sequins but still want some sparkle, I can also recommend James C Brett Twinkle. I have used this yarn before - a purple one for the Glastonbury Blanket - and I found it to be really good, comparable to the Stylecraft to work with. In fact, looking for that link, the Twinkle range appears to have some excellent 'Frozen' colours, if you wanted extra twinkly-iciness!

A screen shot including some good Frozen colours!

So, lots of looking and daydreaming about better colours, and I had decided to make a blanket out of squares, but I wanted to include snowflakes… (6 sides into 4 anyone??)

I found a really great snowflake design here. The wordy pattern looked daunting at first, but was actually easy to follow and the finished article looks so great. I couldn’t get my tension right though, as hooking with the sequins seemed to mess things up. I tried to find a larger hook to start again, but can’t find what I’ve done with my hooks! 

I will definitely use this pattern again though, as I think it’s really effective – despite my wriggly first attempt! If a larger hook doesn't work, then I would use James C Brett Twinkle in white (shade TK2). You could even just use plain white for the centre though and still get a good effect.

Next up I spotted this one.  Much simpler and smaller than the previous one, but not quite the shape I wanted for my Frozen snowflakes… Although again I would use this pattern for other projects, as I think it’s a pretty cute design in any colour!

In the end, I took inspiration from both patterns and came up with my own design! Feeling pretty chuffed about that!! This hooks up into a nice hexagon shape, which is great if you want a hexagon-patch blanket, and I like the effect of coloured motifs in hexagons as the staggered line-up is quite pleasing I think. But I wanted squares for this – I plan to sew up the blanket/rug at the end, so I can keep an eye out for another icy aqua colour, and sewing up hexagons was not appealing…

Lots of counting and scribbling, and a little bit of calculator work – that was less reliable than my scribbling! – and I came up with a plan to square my hexagons. AND IT WORKED!!!!! I can’t tell you how pleased I felt with myself! I plan to include plain squares in the blanket too, using Little Tin Bird’s Elmer pattern like she did for her Frozen blanket, so a bit of jiggery was required in the last round of my snowflake squares to get the final stitch counts to match (for better sewing up at the end). But it’s looking like it will work, keep your fingers crossed for me!

It’s probably a bit unnecessary to start another project, as I have my Leftover Granny Stripe still on the go, and I have been picking up my Cuddly Hexagons every now and again too! But hopefully it will be ready for Christmas, and make a little lady happy :)