A few months ago I did a little experiment which resulted in four different blankets made using the same colour combination, you can read about it here.
By far the most popular one with my followers was the last one I made with little solid granny squares and I was inundated with questions about it! I thought it would be a good idea to remake this blanket and put it into a proper written pattern for you.
I had intended to have had it released before Christmas but I'm reliant on good quality daylight for all the filming and photography and good quality daylight was a little few and far between last Autumn! Most of my crochet work is done in the evenings too so I am very limited to the daylight time available to me. Add to the mix the cross stitch designer who plagiarised half my website pages (yes, literally word for word in some places!), some new EU product safety regs that came into effect right in the middle of December (thanks Brexit!) and I had even less time to focus on this blanket!
A new year though has meant a little less day job pressure and I've had a chance to finally pull it all together.........this time though I have put together a new colour combo for you and I have called this one Amber!
Why Amber? you ask........Amber is our pooch! As my daughter has already had a combo named for her it only seemed right that the boss of the house should have her own combo too!
Once again I've used Yarnsmiths Create DK and these are the colours I've used
- Pinkberry
- Rose pink
- Off white
- Olive green
- Antique gold
- Rust
- Linen (joining colour)
I made 36 solid three round granny squares to form a 6 x 6 blanket. Here's a link to my video showing you how I make these squares
Amber Baby Blanket solid granny squares
I then used a form of continuous join as you go to join the squares. This join produces a lovely twist which adds a really nice feature to the blanket. You can learn this method here.......
Amber Baby Blanket continuous join as you go
Can I just ask please that if you watch one of my videos and decide that you are offended by the way I crochet that you refrain from leaving a self righteous comment telling me how offended/disturbed/tortured (yes tortured!?) you are, there is just no need. Read it back to yourself before you hit send, how would you feel receiving that comment? Is it really a good use of your time? The videos were live less than a couple of hours before someone felt the need to leave me an unnecessary, unkind comment.
As I mentioned before I have put together a full written pattern for this blanket and you can find it in my Etsy shop here........
The pattern is available in UK and US terms and includes the following
- How I make the solid granny square
- My Amber colour placement
- The continuous join as you go method used
- The border
There are lots of step by step photos and I've also included a Stylecraft Special DK conversion and a colour placement plan for 12 x 12 blanket at the end.
I've loved working with these colours and couldn't help making some standard grannies with them. I followed my easy colour placement method but adapted it for 6 colours making 36 squares for a 6 x 6 blanket. I then decided I wanted a seventh row so I made 6 more squares and joined them in the same order as the first row.
I couldn't resist having my nails done to match......if you follow me on Instagram you'll know the back story to my nails.
Long story short (kinda) I was an extreme nail biter since forever and nothing I had tried over the years (and I tried all sorts!) worked. It was an embarrassing habit that I'd been teased about a lot over the years and I'd got very good at hiding my nails! It was one of the main reasons I didn't want to do video tutorials and if you look closely at my earlier videos (you'll all be looking now!) it is quite evident I was a biter!
Anyway listening to the radio one day they were discussing hair pulling and how it comes under the OCD umbrella and nail biting also came up. A lady called in to say she used a fidget toy to stop her from pulling her hair and that's when the penny dropped! As you can imagine with all the crafts I'm involved in my hands are pretty busy most of the time so how on earth did I have time to bite my nails!? It turns out that it was only during a small window of opportunity when myself and my husband sat to watch a little TV together in the evening that I did it.
We have a whole box of fidgets in our house, my daughter was obsessed with them a one point so I found myself a small ring like one that you can put on your finger and then just run it up and down keeping your hands busy! Every time we sat down to watch the TV I used the fidget. After about a week I'd broken the habit and haven't needed the fidget since and for the first time in my 48 years I have beautiful long, healthy nails!
Right, back to crochet! I'm joining these squares with continuous join as you go once again and you can learn this method for standard granny squares here
Continuous join as you go with (UK) DCs
I generally like my borders quite fuss free, clean, straight lines, not too much frilliness and not too many colours! However I fancied experimenting with this one and in my mind I had a vision of a shell stitched border in the joining colour. I wasn't sure if it was going to work and it did take a few goes to get it right but it was definitely worth it as it suits the blanket quite nicely. For this edging I took the shell stitch variation used in Attic24's dune pattern and adapted it into a border.
If you do happen to make a blanket inspired by mine it's really nice to get a mention for the inspiration, or perhaps you could even share my blog post.
I hope you have found this combo inspiring and I'd love to see how you use it! If you want you can use the hashtag #littledovecolourcombos on social media to share your creations
All my blog content is provided FREE however if you would like to support the time involved in producing the blog and appreciate the information I share you can do so by 'buying my a coffee' via my Kofi page. Alternatively you could share this blog post, one of my social media posts or perhaps one of my You Tube videos……a share is hugely helpful to me!
Thank you and happy crocheting
Faye :)
