Cosmic Cal Blanket by Helen Shrimpton

I wanted to make a blanket to match the decor of one of our rooms in yellows and greens.Having made a Helen Shrimpton design before I thought the Cosmic Cal looked perfect.

I made it in the Harmony colourway using Stylecraft Special Double knit in lemon, pistachio, parchment, walnut and mustard.

Really well written pattern, lots of photo help and written descriptions, I particularly like the stitch count given at the end of each row or round so you know exactly what you should have and can easily correct errors before going on too far. 

You can find this pattern and many others for FREE! On Helen’s website: 

http://www.crystalsandcrochet.com/

 I’d been using the U.K. terms without photos  (so I could print the instructions only) however there wasn’t one for section 3 so had to use the US terms, not a problem, just needed to remember that they are different.

On round 52 and 53 I changed the stitch to UK half treble on the long side and left short side as UK treble as I want the blanket to be more rectangular that it I was looking.

Round 67 proved tricky for me, I struggled to get into the back loop of the picot stitches, kept breaking my thumb nail so opted to do it my way which proved a bit tricky getting the correct stitch count.

By now I wasn’t enjoying making it and it was big enough for my needs so I did a few rows of my own design and finished off.

This is no reflection on a fabulous well written pattern, just my personal experience.

Really happy with my finished blanket. Thank you Helen for sharing your beautiful patterns.

Happy crocheting!

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Crochet Flower Blanket or Playmat Pattern Review

 Spoke Flower Blanket by The Crochet Fix.

This pattern was something I’d wanted to do for a long time so was really happy when I got time to get started.

It did start off a bit of a nightmare, nothing to do with the pattern which is extremely well written by the way, no it was me not reading it properly!

I got through the first full pattern repeat and all looked fine, it was nice and flat and looked really nice in the colours I’d chosen.

So I continued on but it started to pucker at one side of the spoke of each petal and twist around, like this ......

So I checked the pattern, felt sure I was right but undid it back to the dark purple where it had been fine.

Off I went again but the same thing happened, I thought maybe it would improve when blocked so carried on, but sadly it got worse and the puckering looked awful, no way was this going to come out with blocking.......

Sadly it was time to undo again! 😥

I nearly gave up, it was so much work to undo but decided to really sit and read the pattern again, I must be missing something and indeed I was, where the pattern called for UK treble/US dc down the side of each petal and UK half treble/US hdc hdc at the spoke, I was doing all half treble from the increase at the petal point! 

Studying the numbered round chart I had a eureka moment realising how I’d misunderstood. What a relief, it meant I could get back on track and actually finish it.

My advice is read, read, read, study, study,study. Look at the charts which give all the stitch counts for each round and you won’t go wrong. 

Here’s my finished blanket or it can be a baby playmat. It measures 36” across from point to point, worked in double knit on a 4mm hook.

I’ve also used the same pattern to make some placemats and coasters, doing just the first few rounds. For the small coasters I did just one colour each round, for the larger mat I did two rounds per colour.

An absolutely brilliant pattern and offered for free which is so kind bearing in mind the amount of work that must have gone into it. Thank you The Crochet Fix. 

Find the pattern on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/spoke-flower-blanket




Happy crocheting!

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