When I saw this Loki mini skein collection that Castle View Yarns was launching back in the Autumn of 2021 I totally fell in love with it. The colours are just my kinda colours, rich, earthy, Autumnal tones that all co-ordinated so well together! It was going to be my Christmas present to myself and I chose the 4ply option (I fancied a challenge!) When it arrived it was even more beautiful than I imagined and I couldn't wait to turn it into a blanket that I would keep and treasure forever
(photo above by Castle View Yarns)
I really enjoyed winding the mini skeins into balls ready to start, seeing all the colours more closely whilst pondering on what sort of blanket I would make. After lots of pondering I decided on circles and hexagons so I'd have a kind of polka dot effect.
I also needed to find a joining yarn and I chose Scheepjes Metropolis which is a really beautiful 4ply with a huge range of colours. I chose the shade Cota which is a lovely light grey colour with a very subtle slightly lilac hue to it. Sadly the Loki mini skein set is no longer available as it was just a limited edition at the time but do check out Castle View Yarns for future beautiful collections and mini skeins.
It took me around a year to make my blanket. I enjoyed every minute of the process and so pleased with how it turned out. It was a great portable project and often accompanied me to Craft and Chat nights :) It's probably the blanket I get asked most about so I've been slowly working on ways to share how I made it with you so you can make your own version.
I fully appreciate that both hand dyed yarn and Metropolis are not cheap. When I first started making my blanket I had no thoughts on sharing a pattern for it nor did I have a You Tube channel as I do now so this blanket was purely made as a little luxury for myself. I'm not a smoker nor much or a drinker, and I'm definitely not a fashion victim haha so when I want to treat myself it usually involves yarn (or cake)! What I've been working on recently is a DK acrylic yarn version of my Loki blanket so that it is more affordable. I've also been working on a series of videos to share with you so that you can make your own Loki blanket
I hope to also in future release an actual written pattern however I find pattern writing really tedious and quite stressful (it feels like homework to me!) so it takes me absolutely ages and I agonise over every word and image. It's not an enjoyable process for me and what I've learnt as I've got older is that I prefer to concentrate on things that bring me joy (doing crochet) not angst (writing crochet)! I’ve been approached by publishers to write books a few times in the last couple of years but it’s not for me! Partly due to knowing it wouldn’t be an enjoyable process for me as explained above and partly because publishers seem to be churning out crochet books left, right and centre recently which has kinda put me off.
I have to approach pattern writing in small doses but I will try my best to get it done as I know some of you prefer a written pattern (I do myself ironically!)
As soon as I've got the videos to a point I'm happy to publish them I'll let you know and if you subscribe to my You Tube channel you'll get a notification as soon as new videos are uploaded
A big thank you to everyone who has shown so much love for this blanket over the last couple of years, it's my most favourite make ever and I'm looking forward to sharing how I made it with you so you can enjoy making it as much as I did!
Faye x