Lily’s Lilypad Fireplace Blanket.

At last I have finished my new granny square blanket! It has been an age. I got the wool in July, which to me seems like a loooong time ago. The first post I mentioned it in reminds me not to just click on auto edit when sorting out the photos because, crikey, those pictures need toning down. Hope I’ve improved since then. The next picture doesn’t count, it was taken indoors on a rainy day :/

These are the decorative fireplace tiles, which originally inspired the colour choices.

I used the Lily pad square from Pasta and Patchwork but I added extra chains between stitches for the first couple of rounds as my granny squares were not sitting flat. Indeed, they looked like strange nipples. They still don’t sit flat so could do with blocking. However, blocking things increases waiting time and I just want to see a crochet blanket finished. I’m too impatient for it but this crochet blanket would really benefit from blocking. Over time, it’ll sort itself out.

I used Drops Karisma for this project. It has alpaca in it and it’s super warm. It’s nice and hefty; the weight of it has real cosiness. The colours are: light beige, olive, mint, light dusty pink, dark mustard, light grey green, chocolate brown, wine red and beige brown mix. I used 7 balls of light beige and two of each for the others. It’s an odd size: 6×9 squares which is slightly over long, or not quite wide enough, depending on which way you want to look at it. I actually planned for 7×7 but I didn’t want to have that much leftover yarn and I wasn’t sure it’d be that big. Unfortunately I was a square short to add another row of 7.  I eeked it out with what I could and this was the formation that used the most squares.

I think the border suits it very well and I will use it for my next crochet blanket (which I’ve already started!). The border has come from Around the Corner, Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman. It’s the last two rows of pattern 27. The corners are made up because I hadn’t laid the foundation stitches from the pattern (not enough yarn for that). I think it works beautifully well.

I’ve used a Continuous Join As You Go to join the granny squares together. I learned this method using a fabulous JAYG tutorial, it’s the clearest one I’ve found. I used two UK trebles in every other stitch, which is different from the cluster used in the tutorial but the principle is the same.

I’m properly pleased with this new blanket. I will be waving goodbye to it at the end of the month when I hand it over to my sister in law. A Lily Pad blanket for Lily, or, Fireplace Blanket.

Next, I’m focusing on Halloween decorations, hopefully there will be a post about that and I’m also working on a new pattern for something Christmassy. It doesn’t feel right liaising with Father Christmas before I’ve sorted Halloween but there you go.

 

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