I enjoyed making the Whatchamacallit blanket so much I couldn't wait to start another of Hooked On Sunshine's beautiful patterns! I was very much spoilt for choice but eventually settled on 'Marnie's Garden' which is another very well written pattern.
Again I'm using Yarnsmiths Headliner and Support Act to make this blanket and what I love about these yarns is how they work so well together. The Support Act colourways exactly match the inner and outer colours of the Headliner cakes so you can easily add them at the beginning or end of your project to make the blanket a little bigger or help to finish the last pattern repeat. I had a little bit of the outer blue shade left over from the Lilac Garden Headliner cake too and very conveniently it is the exact same colour of blue as the inner shade of the Seaside Holiday Headliner cake which is what I'm using for Marnie's Garden so I started by using that leftover bit before then joining the beginning of this yarn cake. It's always good when you can avoid wasting yarn!
As you can see this yarn cake has a beautiful colourway spanning blues, through to peachy pinks and then finally mustard yellow. A couple of people have said I must have cut and manipulated the Seaside Holiday cake (and the Lilac Garden cake) to get the colour flow, it can't possibly have been the cake......ABSOLUTELY NOT.......the beauty of these yarn cakes is that the progression of colour is seamless, it gently changes as you work with it, that's the whole point of this yarn, you use it continuously. You can also see the cake and it's colourway in the photo above, this photo was also posted on my socials. There's no conspiracy, no secret, no manipulation, no deceit....it is one yarn cake. Honestly this continual nitpicking on socials is just exhausting! I DID NOT cut this yarn cake at any point, I used it start to finish continuously. Some of you need to have a day off.
The eagle eyed amongst you who have made this pattern yourself may have noticed that I've not done the surface stitching round. This was deliberate, I don't really enjoy doing surface stitches so I just skipped that round and carried on with the next round. I was a bit worried it might take away from the look of the blanket when finished but it hasn't done that too much, it was just my personal preference to miss this off, there's no right or wrong, do what you prefer.
The pattern repeats are quite long with this one and unfortunately my yarn cake ran out before I was at the point in the repeat that I needed to be for the border......cue Support Act in mustard to the rescue! I completed the last few rounds of the pattern repeat with Support Act and then I was able to start the border at the correct place in the pattern
I've used Support Act in champagne to work the border. I love the borders on these blankets, they compliment the main body of the blanket so nicely and give it a lovely vintage look.
I used one Headliner yarn cake in Seaside Holiday, just short of 3 Support Act cakes in mustard and 2 Support Act cakes in champage (as well as that tiny bit of leftover blue from the Lilac Garden cake which I mentioned about earlier) and my blanket came out at approx 95cm square
Once again I highly recommend this pattern. I thoroughly enjoyed making it and it's been really lovely to discover a new to me designer. I really love to support designers when I can, not everyone wants to be a designer, sometimes I just want to enjoy the crochet process without all the planning and thinking and that's why a good pattern is worth shouting about!
Now I’ve finished this one I’ll be taking a break from posting on all of my socials for a little while, it’s not particularly enjoyable at the moment and I don’t want to lose my love for crochet altogether. I’ve always posted about what I’m making because I wanted to, not because I have to, the vast majority of what I share is free because I want crochet to be accessible to as many people as possible but now it’s just expected, sometimes even demanded, and that’s not why I crochet or why I share what I’m making. I crochet for enjoyment, not to be made to feel like I owe you something.
The blog will still be up so if you’re looking for info or inspiration you’ll find lots here if you look for it. I won’t be responding to messages unless they are in relation to my paid written patterns purchased through my Etsy shop.
I don’t know if I’ll be back on socials yet, maybe, when the time is right for me, maybe not. For now it’s time for me to take control so I don’t lose my love of the craft.
My blog is not monetised, I did for around three months introduce google ads to my blog posts however I just wasn't happy with the interruptions to my posts and the general look of it and I know as a reader myself that I much prefer to have a more flowing reading experience so they have now been disabled by choice.
I know some of you do like to in some way support the work that I do and so if you would like to support the time involved in producing the blog and videos and all the information I provide you can do so by 'buying me a coffee' via my Kofi page. I am always extremely touched anytime anybody chooses to do this, thank you.
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 :)