CKCA4 Gypsy patchwork

The next pattern in the Berroco book Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans was Gypsy patchwork by Margery Winter. It is made up of knitted blocks in four patterns – three with embroidered motifs and one fair isle. The blocks are joined using blanket stitch type stitches. This is not a pattern that would appeal to me – too detailed, garish colours, no challenging knitting and I don't do embroidery.

The pattern was suitable for my collection of Rowan Handknit Cotton. I chose the bright coloured shades and some that I wanted to finish. Instead of embroidery I wanted to do intarsia motifs, hoping to find patterns in the Debbie Abrams book of blanket patterns. But her patterns were too detailed for my liking, so I ended up improvising two, based on some of her circles.


 
 
 
 
 
I tried a fair isle design, but my tension grew wider and the blocks would have ended up a different size so I gave up on that idea. Instead I did stripes. For the fourth design I did just plain shades. I did the blocks in stocking stitch with a moss stitch border around the edges.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The knitting was more fun than I had anticipated. I have always looked at Handknit cotton with caution because it seemed thick and inflexible, but it was a pleasure to handle. After doing half the blocks I thought I would wash them before joining, and that was a mistake. The yarn turned harsh, and spinning left creases. This was after a machine wash – surely cotton yarn can be washed in machine – and the same happened when I handwashed another. I ditched the washed blocks and decided to do a smaller blanket with the rest. I didn't have the heart to start again.



 

I crocheted a border around each block to imitate the blanket stitch and then joined them using double crochet. I quite like the blanket in the end. I enjoy the colours; they are sort of gypsy like. It was nice doing intarsia after many years, and the stripes were satisfying.

 
 

 
 
Gypsy patchwork

Pattern: Margery Winter; Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans

Yarn: Rowan Handknit Cotton
Needles: 4 mm
Tension: 20 sts
Size: 135 cm by 105 cm
Weight: 1035 gr

2 July to 11 October 2017

CKCA3 Retro

This is the next blanket from the Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans book, number 3 Retro.  It is by Norah Gaughan, one of my favourite designers.  The pattern is plain coloured, but as it is unusual that to come across one and half kilos of the same yarn in a charity shop I had to use my standard measure of a three yarn stripe.

I had long earmarked the first yarn, Jaeger Matchmaker Sport in white, 14 balls of 50 gr.  It was a bad buy, because it was expensive and because it is difficult to match white, so it had been unused for six years.  I was obvious in need of yarn when I bought it.  For the second yarn I used the lovely pale green that I unravelled for blanket #177.  It was too good for standard blankets. I bought the third specifically for this project because I thought it would go well with the others.  It was Rowan Yarns Cashsoft Aran in a nice beige shade.

I checked the Ravelry entry for the project before I started, and noted the errata.  But the link led to a blank page, so I was none the wiser.  It felt unsafe to start off on a pattern where anything could be wrong.  There was one obvious mistake - a key was wrong.  Surely there was other mistakes?  The stitches didn't match in one place when you started a new pattern repeat.  On Ravelry some knitters had corrected it, others hadn't, so I felt safe matching them.  Was there anything else?  I am not sure I got the number of rows between pattern repeats right, but I did them in a way that made sense to me.

I found manipulating the stitches difficult, too, and at one point wondered if I would have to give up.  But this project - to do all the patterns in the book - was supposed to be a challenge, so I continued.  The difference between knitting through the back loop and knitting through the back of the stitch still escapes me.  Because I do continental knitting?  But my version of the pattern looked pretty similar to the picture in the book, so I thought it was OK.  I was surprised that Ravelry users had given the pattern an easy rating.  I thought it was difficult.

To avoid seaming I knitted the five panels in one.  I inserted five rib stitches between each panel, partly to make the blanket wider and partly to made a divider between the panels.  I think I would have found it boring to knit five identical panels.  I did the same number of repeats as in the pattern which produced a shorter than full length blanket.

I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed the knitting once I had sorted out the problems and got going.  Partly this was due to the yarns - it felt different from the numerous strands in the standard blanket.  The Jaeger yarn was thicker than the other two, and it would have been better with something thinner.  The Cashsoft turned out to be my favourite.  I had stayed clear of the cashmere synthetic blend yarns before, but it was lovely to knit with.  The green was the thinnest.

I recalculated the number of stitches required for the border, slightly awkwardly with a pattern repeat of 8 stitches.  I cast off in pattern on the wrong side because I wanted a stretchy edge, but it turned out to flare slightly.

I am pleased with the result.  No doubt it would have been better in one single yarn.  Washing it made the texture disappear but I liked it better afterwards.  Best of all, I am so pleased with my efforts, that I managed to follow the pattern, more or less, and that I persevered with a difficult pattern stitch.

CKCA3 Retro by Norah Gaughan
Yarn: Jaeger Matchmaker Sport white wool 100%
           RY Cashsoft Aran beige wool 57% microfiber 33% cashmere 10%
           unravelled green presumed wool 100%
Needles:  5 mm
Tension:  18 sts to 10 cm
Weight: 1545 gr
Size:  160 cm by 145 cm
Made: 14 August to 19 November 2016

Marrakesh Crochet blanket

This is my second blanket from the Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghan book, although it is very different from the pattern.  The pattern is by Donna Yacino and it is called Marrakesh,  in Tunisian crochet.  I have never tried Tunisian crochet; I have seen other people do it and it does not seem difficult.  But I don't own a Tunisian crochet hook, and, as I would need several to try out the tension, I don't want to make the investment.  And, where do you buy them?  They are not widely available.  I could get them from the internet, but I do like to see what I buy.  And, it is not wise to try out a new technique on as large a project as a blanket.

So I decided to do it in a crochet stitch that look similar to the Tunisian stitch, standard double crochet.  The pattern is done in three panels, presumably to accommodate the length of a Tunisian crochet hook.  Ordinary crochet has no such limitations, so I did it in one.  I started with a new technique for me, foundation crochet.  It worked fine, and I prefer it to starting from a chain, so I will use it again.

The yarn choice started with the pink Sandnes Mandarin Soft cotton.  I bought a lot of 10 balls against my better judgment, because it is a Norwegian brand.  It is a very nice cotton, soft as implied by the name.  Because it is loosely plied you do have to watch out that it does not split.

The second yarn came from a garment in the yarn store, this cotton chenille knitted jacket with a cable design.  I bought it, not for this project, but because I liked the blue colour, and chenille gives a nice texture to knitted blankets, although it is difficult to knit with because it is non-stretchy.  Here I thought it would look nice with the pink.  It might be Rowan yarn and Rowan pattern, but I could not find it from a quick search.  It has got the buttons you find on Rowan garments.

These two yarns are both aran weight cottons.  I added other similar balls of cotton yarn from the yarn store in suitable colours.  (I didn't use all the yarns in the picture.)  I arranged the yarns chosen in a pleasing order and started the crochet.

I enjoyed doing this.  I think because it was mindless crochet.  I could pick it up at any time and keep going without thinking about pattern or yarn.  There was interest in adding the next ball in a different colour.  When I came to the end of one ball I added the next.  I enjoyed the crochet with some yarns more than others.  My favourites were Rowan Blue Jeans and an old Pingouin Coton Naturel 8 Fils.  The chenille yarn was not a problem.
 

I did realise, not for the first time, how difficult it is to find yarns that look good together.  There are a lot of yarns in the yarn store, but once you whittle them down by weight, by fibre, by shade, you struggle to get enough for a blanket and you end up with less than perfect results.

I didn't do the embroidery.  It looks nice on the pattern, but I don't do embroidery.  If I did it would be abstract patterns and not flowers.  Any embroidery would anyway disappear in my stripes.

I like the blanket.  The colours are what were available.  I ran out of the pink Sandnes, as I knew I would, so I added two shades of pink.  It was a struggle to find blues, too, at the end.  The texture is lovely, the chenille feels so good, but  so do all the cottons.  It would have looked better, if I had added new yarns at the sides.  Then I would have had to plan colours, and I didn't know how many rows I would get from one ball.  So I would have needed more shades to make sure.  And I would have ended up with scraps of yarn.  This way everything got used up - except for the blue chenille and some other blue.

I decided the sides were fine without an edging.  At the top I did a row of slip stitch to mimic the foundation row.








CKCA2 Marrakesh
Yarn: Sandnes Mandarin Soft, cotton chenille, odd balls of cotton yarn
Hook:  5 mm
Tension:  13 sts to 10 cm
Weight: 1730 gr
Size:  125 cm by 177 cm
Made: 6 November 2015 to 18 January 2016

Bicolor Chevron

I bought the book Comfort Knitting & Crochet Afghans because it had the pattern for the Bright Star blanket, based on a patchwork pattern, that I had long admired.  Glancing through the book I thought it worth buying because it had many other interesting patterns for blankets.  I know that I would be happy just knitting my standard blankets over and over again, but there are so many patterns around that I would like to try (and there is so much yarn in the yarn store).  So I decided that I would make each pattern in this book, in the order that they come.

This is another aspect of the randomness that I like.  That I do things to a predetermined order so that the weight of making decisions is taken away from me.  I have flexibility in the choice of yarn, because I can only use yarn in the yarn store, and I can interpret the size and tension as best fits.






Looking through the book quickly I had not realised that the yarn used throughout is Berroco Comfort yarn, a nylon acrylic blend in several weights.  As it is an American yarn I have not actually seen it but it does not really matter as I was going to use my own yarns anyway.

The first pattern in the book is called Bicolor chevron by Donna Yacino, and it is a chevron pattern in crochet.  So this follows on from my knitted chevron blanket.  I decided to use my Rowan Cotton Glace which is thinner than the yarn in the pattern, so I used a smaller hook and recalculated the number of stitches.  The pattern said to crochet rows 1 and 2, and then return to the beginning of row 2.  Because I was going to use more than two colours I turned round every row, so my blanket will look different from the pattern.  But this is the kind of decision I can take.

It was an easy pattern to crochet, and so relaxing.  The one thing that bothered me was a hole at the decrease, and I can't say if it is me or the pattern.  You decreased one stitch by skipping two spaces.  I could have decreased two by crocheting two stitches together and avoided a hole, but this was not how the pattern was written.

The two Rowan Cotton Glace yarns came from charity shops, in shades Oyster and Candyfloss.  I had 10 balls of the first and 8.5 of the second, so on their own it was not enough.  I added an unlabelled mercerized yarn, that feels like cotton, in a natural shade, and Anna og Clara cotton yarn, bought very cheaply in Copenhagen.  I used three of the shades in the picture.  It was not mercerized, but feels very nice, and it fits very well.  I did my 3 * 3 stripes, which was probably too long.  I must experiment with shorter stripes.

The pattern did not have an edging, but I wanted to hide the yarn carried along the sides, so I did a row of crab stitch all around.  Other than fastening a few ends there was no more finishing to be done!

I like it.  I so enjoyed the simple crochet.  I must do more crochet.  The colours look good together, and they are the same pastel colours as in my knitted chevron blanket.  On the whole I prefer the knitted one, because the knitted fabric feels nicer to snuggle up inside.  The crochet blanket is good for other uses.

CKCA1 Bicolor Chevron

Yarn: Rowan Cotton Glace, Oyster and Candyfloss shades, unlabelled natural yarn, Anna og Clara cotton yarn, all 100% cotton
Hook:  3.5mm
Tension:  23 sts to 10 cm (how do you measure tension for chevron?)
Weight: 1320 gr
Size:  125 cm by 170 cm
Made: 28 July to 17 December 2014