Work in Progress: Raad Baby Blanket

Reading copious amounts of Terry Pratchett has given me a soft spot for puns. This particular pun is a play on my friend's surname, Raad, and the slang term, "rad". She's pregnant, and the crochet blanket will be a gift to her child, becoming a Raad blanket. Get it? Get it? Oh, man, I crack myself up.

Above: The Raad blanket uses the classic granny square crochet design.

Above: Each square has a silver border, so that I can hide the join easily by using silver crochet yarn when attaching them.

Above: I chose to use opposite arrangements of light and dark colors. This creates both balance and interest in the design.

 Above: The crochet baby blanket is crafted using bamboo yarn (yup, you guessed it, from my favorite yarn maker - Vinni's). The bamboo crochet yarn is incredibly soft, has a nice weight and a lovely sheen. A color that would have been grey in any other yarn, becomes silver, because of the sheen of the bamboo yarn. I think it's going to turn out beautifully.

I'm using a no.4 crochet hook, with a double stitch. For each row, I turn the piece over, so that there is no "front" and "back" to the square. On the third, fourth and fifth rows (counted from the center), I crochet into the top of the stich, instead of the big gap between the stiches. This gives the blanket even more fluidity of movement. 

A word of advice for crocheting with bamboo yarn; take it slow and hide your cut ends. Mistakes wrought in this yarn are highly visible and it can be frustrating to go over each square looking for shaggy ends and missed threads.

Sunset Shell Blanket

My sister has just moved in with some friends of ours, and as a house-warming gift, I crafted a crochet blanket for her. There's something ironic a bout this blanket - the colors. I had a lot of wool left over from another crochet blanket (The Red Rambler - I'll post on it soon), and it turns out that the colors were exactly what she was looking for. Lucky lucky!

Colors: moonstone, beige, orange, red, purple, brown

Crochet Pattern for Sunset Shell Blanket:


Chain a multiple of 3.

Row 1: Crochet 3 half-doubles in 3rd ch from hook (shell). *Skip 2 ch, 3 half-doubles in 3rd ch. Continue from * to the end of the row. To finish the row, crochet one half-double in the last ch. Ch2 and turn.
Row 2: Skip 1 stitch, 3 half-doubles in the 2nd stitch. *Skip 2 stitches, 3 half-doubles in 3rd stitch. Continue from * to the end of the row. To finish the row, crochet one half-double in the last stitch. Chain 2 and turn.

Repeat row 2 to create the pattern.

I crocheted two rows of each color to accentuate the pattern. I think I'll try three on a future project. This pattern was so much fun to work with that I will definitely be using it again.

For the edging, I used a pattern of; *half-double, ch1, skip a stitch, repeat from*. It creates a very loose and stretchy edging, ideal for a curl-up-on-the-couch blanket.

Solving the "tight edge" problem in crochet: Using the same size hook for the chain edge and body leads to the chain edge being tighter than the body, creating less "give" at that edge. Use a hook for the edge that is 1mm or 1.5mm bigger than the hook that you used for the body. For example; I used a 7mm hook for the edge and a 5.5mm edge for the body of the blanket.

I can't wait to give her the blanket. Spring is officially here, but I think there will still be plenty of cool nights for her to use the blanket on.

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