I haven’t done a crochet related update in quite awhile, so over the last couple of days I’ve been having a look through my Facebook page and my phones auto back up photo thing and finding some for you.
Some blankets have had more pictures taken of them than others (I tend to snap them on my phone and by the end of the day when I get chance to sit and crochet my battery is always low/gone!) So the ones with more I’ve squished together so you can see progress/different lights :)

It’s been a long time since I closed my list for requests for blankets. I think in my head I expected closing my list would mean I could whizz through all the blankets and then spend the end of last year teaching myself how to Tunisian crochet.
That isn’t what has happened.

What really happened is crochet and I went through a trial period of separation. I just didn’t want to do it, just thinking about it got me stressed and my mind would race too much with ideas.
All of my works in progress halted.

The two blankets that were in progress/started this time last year are still in progress.
There was the granny bobble spiral which I just could not get to work as it got bigger. So after a couple of failed attempts I ripped it out and started all over again as an African Flower blanket.
I don’t have an updated picture because I just cannot get the hexagons to join together as it should look in my head. There has literally been sweat and tears over this one because in my head I can do it, but I just can’t get it *right*

That isn’t even the final layout as it stands, it looks totally different. Hopefully soon I will get it right and there will be a mahoosive whoopee post about it!! :)

The other blanket, which I’d been calling my masterpiece was the cotton granny stripe. (pattern by attic24)
Looking back I’d started it around this time last year and the early pictures were from around Mr. B’s birthday which was this weekend just gone.
Again getting the border right on this one has caused nightmares. There have been 3 attempts. The first two have been ripped out as the first one increased the stitch count around the border and made it look all saggy. The second attempt just didn’t go with the blanket at all. So that was around 20 hours of work.

The 3rd picture down showed the second attempt at the border. (I snapped that picture the night I undid it all to start again)
Up until that point I had totally fallen out of love with this blanket. And aside from occasionally doodling down ideas in my little notebook for when my head is racing,  I also almost completely fell out with crochet.

I didn’t do anything that required a pattern,  or much thought, the kind of thing I could do on automatic pilot and not get stressed about. (When I’m not too well mentally the smallest easiest things can be too hard and it just has to be abandoned in the name of mental health!)
As a result there have been granny squares (and rectangles)

The top picture is a little mint granny square I made for MJs cuddly toy tigger.  The one underneath is a toddler bed sized granny square made in Red Heart Super Saver (worsted weight) to be honest at first I didn’t like that yarn at all. It wasn’t soft (& I wasn’t brave enough to try some of the ways to soften it that were on pinterest!) And I’m used to working with Double Knit yarn, so it took a while to adjust to it.
After only a few rounds I liked how quickly it worked up and I got used to the bigger sized hook (I think I went up to a 7mm because my tension is tight and on whatever the label suggested wasn’t right for me)
And once it was finished and had been through my rigorous soaking routine before being washed, I can say that Red Heart Super Saver *does* soften. It’s still not as soft and squishy as say stylecraft special DK but with a bit of TLC it is soft.
That blanket lives at our house because it was all that Little H was asking for at Christmas.  “A blue mama blanket” (well that and a blue mini) who am I to deny him?!
I also made MJ a little rectangle whose size doesn’t compare to the blue square,  however I can’t find a picture so I’ll talk about that another time!

This isn’t a great picture of the other rather large square that I made, but as it came back to my house for a wash and soak I remembered to grab this as it was drying (as I didn’t get one at the time!)
This was made in stylecraft special DK in wisteria,  clematis and cloud blue. I had one ball of each colour left from when I did attic24 summer garden squares which went on to be part of a big blanket from a bunch of us crocheters from all around the world to one of or crochet friends who has been (& still is) poorly. (I’ll try and find one of the pictures of it!)
So with the balls left over, and my god daughter’s original magic blanket starting to show how much love and cuddles it’s had over the last 7 years I started to make her a new one. I of course had to order more yarn, I think I only needed two balls of each colour. And as it was the first full blanket I have made using stylecraft special DK at the beginning I was thinking “it can’t be all *that* special” (attic24 uses it and a lot of other blogs I follow) and almost straight away I was in love. It’s so soft and easy to work with.
Stylecraft have a new fan in me! (And to support small businesses I don’t order from Deramores,  I use The Wool Loft. I always get it super quickly and their customer service is fab! (Will talk more about them later!)

This pink and purple blanket just makes me smile. It’s not made out of fancy yarn, it’s the acrylic stuff I can get from my local market (called new fashion I think, I’ve seen other bloggers not local to me using it too) and the yardage on it is fab. This is a granny rectangle,  only the 2nd rectangle I’ve made, and like MJs I’ve winged how to do it so it’s different to MJs (because his wasn’t quite right) but I’ll be altering my way to do it again I think. It’s not quite finished (need to sew in the last few ends) and then it’ll be having a soak.
This yarn goes soft so easily (it’s not as soft as the stylecraft but no where near as rough as the red heart felt) and has been used in most of my blankets. ta-dah (2 blankets), Some rippley love, hooky goodness and falling behind (a bit gutted some of my pictures aren’t showing!!)
Hopefully I’ll be able to show you a completed blanket picture soon!
In the meantime have a picture of what helps make magic blankets ‘magic’

Yes. I’m sharing my secret. The magic is baby feets <3

I think the last blanket I'll talk properly about, will be my current 'easy' blanket.
This blanket is special. All of my blankets are special. This one is for a lady from our weight watchers group who is lovely,  so happy and cheerful and friendly. She also has downs syndrome and at the end of last year she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that sometimes occurs in downs syndrome patients. As a group we did a card and one of the ladies got a big teddy and wrote all of our names on pieces of ribbon and pinned them to the teddy.
It just felt like I needed to do something more.
So I started a blanket.

A ripple, because nothing makes me smile more than seeing a ripple blanket. And after talking to one of the ladies from WW who is a friend about what colours G likes I ordered a load of stylecraft special DK from The Wool Loft. And that’s when their customer service came into play. I had an email from Liz letting me know that one of the colours I’d asked for was out of stock and offering me an alternative colour or to wait until they got it back in.
I didn’t see the email for a couple of days and they sent me a message on Facebook (I’m a liker of their page and have ordered via Facebook before so I was easy to find!) To let me know. I chose the alternative and got to work as soon as it arrived.
All I can actually take credit for is holding a hook and it miraculously coming together as the pattern is Attic24 Neat Ripple (also available on her blog but the link isn’t working atm) and the colours are thanks to stylecraft and their special DK range. The choice is amazing!

It is almost finished, and because of my vastly overestimated foundation chain it will be vertical ripples! (It’s almost 5 ft! ) and as you can see I’ve done 4 rows of each colour instead of 2 so that the colours really have chance to shine.
I love it. And as I said before stylecraft have a fan for life in me now!!

I’m not going to carry on, I have more stuff to share, and there are possibly people reading thinking I’ve forgotten what I was in the middle of for them. I haven’t,  I’m just slowly falling in love with crochet again.
I need to finish a few of my big things and get my head straight and I’ll be right! (If anyone is on my list/in progress and is worried you can message me a friendly reminder / questions anytime)

And in keeping with my previous entry…
#letmetakeaselfie

That was yesterday. The sun was letting the rain have a day off! Normal service has resumed today!
But it was a lovely day, we walked to my friend (soulmate)s house and played in their garden (we only have a little one!)

Happy times! <3

♡ Mrs. B x