I’ve really been loving this cosy stripe blanket pattern published by Lucy at Attic24 (you can find it here! Cosy Stripe Blanket).  She has a fab tutorial on her website and in-keeping with her encouragement, I decided to create in “colours that make my heart sing”….this is what I did to create my own cosy stripe blanket!

I decided that I wanted to make a blanket that went through as many colours as possible, but had some sort of rough plan to it.  That meant that rather than just pick randomly from any of the many odds and sods and scraps of DK weight yarn that I have hanging around, I needed to plan the colours a bit more carefully.

To choose my yarn, I started by looking at what I already had and then had a trawl around the yarn shop website, choosing to stick where possible with one brand of yarn so that the look and feel was as similar as possible.  I also thought that I needed a common colour to flow through each set of stripes to sort of pin it all together.

The Plan

I decided that to plan the colours, I would put ALL of the yarn that I had bought in the order I thought I would use it.  After some re-arranging, I was happy with the colour scheme. Once I was happy with the colours, I had to decide how to make them flow together, it turned out by arranging the yarn in this way it became clear (t0 me anyway!) how the colours would flow.

To help me remember which order I had decided on, I took a picture of each colour set.  It turns out this was super important as once it had all got jumbled up in the crochet bag, I kept referring back to these pictures to check the next colour scheme.  I’ve listed out the colours I used below, just in case you see one you want to use too!

So I decided that I would start with a set of blue stripes…

The Blues

• Stylecraft Special DK – Silver (1203)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Teal (1062)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Midnight (1011)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Empire (1829)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Graphite (1063)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Petrol (1708)

…and that they would flow nicely into a set of green stripes…

The Greens

• Stylecraft Special DK – Silver (1203)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Pistachio (1822)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Bottle (1009)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Khaki (1027)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Graphite (1063)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Cypress (1824)

…followed by a set of brown stripes…

The Browns

• Stylecraft Special DK – Silver (1203)
• James C. Brett Top Value DK – Rust (8410)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Walnut (1054)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Stone (1710)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Graphite (1063)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Mocha (1064)

…then a set of orange stripes…

The Oranges

• Stylecraft Special DK – Silver (1203)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Saffron (1081)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Tomato (1723)
• James C. Brett Top Value DK – Yellow (8412)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Graphite (1063)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Gold (1709)

…next a set of red stripes…

The Reds

• Stylecraft Special DK – Silver (1203)
• Red Heart Lisa (00207)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Burgundy (1035)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Lipstick (1246)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Graphite (1063)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Claret (1123)

…and finally, a set of pink stripes…

The Pinks

• Stylecraft Special DK – Silver (1203)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Boysenberry (1828)
•  Stylecraft Special DK –Emperor (1425)
• Stylecraft Special DK –Pale rose (1080)
• Unknown random stash yarn (sorry!)
• Stylecraft Special DK – Graphite (1063)
• Red Heart Lisa – (05691)

I soon realised that this wouldn’t really be big enough if I stopped there, so I have decided to put in some grey stripes in the middle, then go back through the colours in reverse, ending in blue again….once I get that far!  The red and pink stripes are still work in progress, more pictures to follow in part 2! (Update: Now Pink and Red completed, see here Cosy Stripe Blanket (Part 2) )

The Size and Hook

Next I had to decide on the size of the blanket.  The pattern recommends starting with a chain of anything that is a multiple of 3.  She chained 198 to begin with and after some trial and error, starting with a smaller chain didn’t work, so I went with her 198 chain recommendation.

I’m using a size 4mm hook and once finished it is going to end up about 1.5m wide (give or take a few cm!) It could happily be a little smaller, but I wanted something really cosy to snuggle up in on the sofa!

What’s Next…?

There are still plenty more lovely colours waiting to be added to this blanket….so I’d best get back to it!