Charity Blankets, 1 Down!

Hello there,

I thought that today I would share a bit of crochet progress with you. I’m disappointed that the weather hasn’t really been great for photographing my projects, but I have been wanting to share and I just decided to go for it anyway. So please do excuse the terrible photos! I will take more if an opportunity for better ones arises :)

My progress is just a small project, but it's nice to say that my first charity baby blanket is now complete! I only introduced it here about a week ago. At the time, the squares were all finished but in need of joining together. 

I ummed and ah’ed about how to join them – I fancied joining them with UK double crochet in the yellow colour, but when I tried this out I felt like the result was a bit ‘busy’, and didn’t look too good. I therefore reverted to my (by now!) usual method of slip stitching them together using the same colour as the last rounds – in this case white.

For a border I kept it simple, and did a row of white UK trebles all around to tidy up the edges. That was followed by a row of yellow half trebles, and finished off with a row of orange doubles. Into the 2-chains at the corners, on the orange final row I hooked 2 doubles, a treble, then 2 doubles again. This gave a solid corner with no chains, which I felt looked a bit more finished than if I had just chained 2, like in previous rounds.

So here it is finished, I'm thinking of it being called 'Oranges and Lemons' :)

It's not too big – I would have thought it was cot/crib sized, or good for a lap blanket in the pushchair. I don’t have my own children so I’m hoping my estimate is right! And also please excuse the terrible lighting. It was too wet for photos outside, but there are limited opportunities here for indoor photos thanks to the barn conversion not having too many window options!

I am pleased with how it worked out - I learned a few lessons from the last time I did this pattern for the the  Safi Baby Blanket: I prefer the circles being a little more spaced apart by adding the extra rounds of trebles. I also used a decrease stitch over the join between two squares when adding the first edging row. This, along with keeping the edging to a minimum this time, has also kept ruffling to a minimum!

The blanket still needs ironing (or blocking, but I am lazy and will iron this one...) to get it to lie properly flat, but I'm pretty pleased with it. I hope someone else will also like it, and buy it next time my mum's knitting friends do a charity sale for Tŷ Hafan :)

Well, that’s 1 blanket down, now on to the next… ;)