The Mumbles is FINISHED!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!

I can’t quite believe that I can announce this now, but… The Mumbles is finished!!!!!!!  Totally finished – all the ends sewn in and tiny finishing touch added and everything!!!

I’m so excited about it :D    This really has been a labour of love for me, this blanket. Made as a gift for my brother and his lovely fiancée as a present for their wedding next month, every moment I’ve worked on this blanket I have found myself thinking of them, recalling happy times, and thinking ahead to how much I’m looking forward to their wedding – and the Hen weekend which is coming up very soon!

The finished blanket is 29 rippley waves wide, and 80 rippley stripes long – that’s 160 rows of 464 stitches, plus an extra 2 rows for straightening of the top. That’s 162 rows X 464 stitches, which is a wopping 75,168 stitches!!! It is plenty big enough to drape down the sides of a king size bed, but I made it the same length as a duvet so that it won’t hang off the bottom of the bed and fall down.

This blanket began last year, I really wish I made a note of the date!! I offered them a crochet-something as a wedding present, and they said yes please! They requested a blanket, and requested the ripple pattern having seen and loved my first ripple blanket. This is a lovely blanket to make, quite simple and very effective, and the pattern is available for free from Attic 24, it is her neat ripple pattern.

My brother and his girlfriend live by the sea (my brother and I also grew up by the sea) and the sea and the coast plays a huge part in their lives. Therefore it was a no-brainer that they would want a blanket in ocean colours.

I bought most of the yarn from Boyes department shop, and the majority of it is Stylecraft Life DK. I gathered up all of the blues, plus a couple of sand colours: 

From left to right: Navy, Mint, Mixtures Denim, Stone Nepp, Cascade, Regent, Oatmeal, Cobalt, Aqua, Denim Nepp

 

As well as the Life range, I saw Stylecraft had a range called Luxury Wool Rich DK, with 51% wool. This doesn’t come in so many different shades, but I got the 2 that were suitable for my project: Petrol and French Navy.  I later on got the Stylecraft Alpaca DK (20% alpaca) in Mistral too, which is also pictured here:

As well as the Stylecraft goodies, I picked up some other brands too. Pictured are: Wendy Mode Double Knitting 50% Merino in shades 227 & 237; James C Brett Pure Merino (so soft and lovely!!) in PM5 and PM12; and King Cole Merino Blend DK 100% wool in shade 926:

In addition to these yarns, I went on to buy individual balls for special reasons. (I didn’t get pictures of these - oops): 

I got a beautiful 100% merino yarn from the lovely Jane’s yarn shop and café in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire is home to me, it is my brother and I grew up, and my mum was with me when I got this yarn too.

My brother and I share a birthday (we’re not twins though!) and on our birthday last year I went to London for a day out with my husband, and we popped into Liberty’s while we were there. I picked up a Rowan Tweed yarn, 100% wool, in shade 590 Wensley. I picked the Wensley as (in context of an ocean blanket) it reminded me of seaweed colours, which I didn’t already have. So this yarn was special because it was bought on his birthday.

I also brought back a ball of 100% pure alpaca from Peru. I still really regret not buying more yarn when I was there – our bags were so full and I was so sick of shopping when we got to the end of our trip, but now I realise it would have been worth the effort :( This yarn was obviously special just because it had come from Peru, and it inspired my further purchase of the Stylecraft Alpaca later on :)

Look at this post for pictures of these yarns as stripes if you are interested :)

I have worked on a few other smaller projects or bits of projects in between work on the Mumbles, but this has definitely been my main focus for a few months now. There were times when I wasn’t sure about the colours. Times when I wasn’t sure about whether I would get it finished in time. Even times when I felt that maybe I shouldn’t have offered this as it wasn’t going to be good enough, and that I should have put the yarn money towards a proper wedding present!

But as it grew, and grew, and grew… I gradually fell in love with it. There are couple of spots where I feel the colour choices could have been better, but overall I think it’s great. My husband loves it too – he is very sad at the thought of giving it away!

It’s pretty amazing to watch a basket of yarn balls:

Turn into a wiggly stripe:

And all of those stripes to build up and up until it starts to look like a blanket:

Then carry on growing until it is just how you want it!

When I laid it on my bed to check the size, and realised it was long enough, I couldn't quite believe it! I had been working on this project for such as long time - it is by far my biggest project yet - and the thought that this work was all over was almost a little bitter-sweet! I was kind of going to miss rippling away in my spare time!

All I had to do now was straighten up the top edge:

Sew in all those ends!

I'm really pleased with how neat my sides are on this blanket

And add a little tiny finishing touch, just to reflect that 'sea' theme that is going on here:

This button was in a multi-pack from Hobbycraft. Each pack was different, but I saw the anchor as I walked past the display...

Then it's time to play around a little!

A big messy pile of ripples?

Neatly folded ripples?

And finally, some ripples in all their glory:

I think I am all rippled-out for now, no ambitions for another ripple blanket in the too-

near future! 

But I do love this giant blanket so much! I hope that its new owners will too, when they get it at the end of next month. I hope they know that there's love in them there 75,168 stitches!!!