You won't find an all singing, all dancing written pattern here. What you will find are some FREE resources put together in my spare time to enable you to have a go at making a similar blanket.
I made this shell stitch blanket last year and have been meaning to get it written up on the blog ever since!
I've used shell stitch many times in the past, it's one of those easy on the brain stitches that I turn to when I just want something to work on that doesn't require too much thinking. I like how when it's worked with the same colour for two rows it produces a ripple like effect. I've often worked it in just one colour for each row and it produces a totally different effect when done like that! Amazing how just a small change in colour placement can make it look like a whole different pattern!
My favourite colour is green and whenever a yarn brand brings out new green shades I am there! This colour combo was built all around Stylecraft Special DK in Apple, I'd been wanting to use this colour for ages, it's a beautiful bright green, and it's worked lovely with the blues.
It's often assumed that I use Stylecraft Special DK all the time, they definitely still seem to have the monopoly on acrylic yarn but I fell out of love with the brand several years ago and although I still like the yarn I very rarely use it these days and much prefer to use Scheepjes Colour Crafter mostly with some Cygnet DK and Paintbox DK thrown in. I've also recently discovered Yarnsmiths Create which is a lovely acrylic and it has a HUGE colour range!
It's not often I use just one brand in a blanket, no single range seems to have every shade I want so I mix them all the time. This blanket though is unusually for me just Stylecraft Special DK in the following shades.....
- Apple
- Sage
- Spearmint
- Petrol
- Cornish Blue
- Midnight
- Pistachio
- Hint Of Silver
I've called this combo Henry because I felt it needed a good, solid name and for me that is Henry!
I made a baby sized blanket with a foundation chain of 103. I don't actually count the whole foundation chain, I just count the stitch multiple, losing count is less likely this way........ you can guarantee if I tried counting hundreds of stitches the husband, child or dog would interrupt at some point so I find it's much easier to just count the multiple! The multiple of shell stitch is 6+1 so I just keep counting to 6 over and over until it's roughly the width I want it then add the extra 1 at the end. If you would like a video tutorial for shell stitch stripes you can find my video on my You Tube channel here
Shell stitch stripes video tutorial
I worked the colours in a completely random order and I did 39 stripes so 78 rows altogether. I like to start and finish with the same colour, it just balances the blanket out nicely for me this way but it's not essential. I then used Hint Of Silver to work four UK double crochet rounds, a nice simple edging just to frame all the colourful stripes!
I hope you have found this colour 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
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Thank you and happy crocheting
Faye :)
