The Circus Patchwork Blanket Ta-dah.......

So.......

.....the reason for my absence......

.....was that, in amongst all the daily chores that seem to ALWAYS be getting GREATER and GREATER.....

.....I have been trying to finish my little blanket for Baby Bear.

It's funny.....I started this last year. I put it down and had no inclination to start it up again. I have a little notebook that I write down the important information on the projects that I am doing. I found, because of this project, and others, that I would start something on a complete whim and then put it down for a long time. When I went to pick it up again, I would forget which size hook I was using, what the pattern was (if i'd just made it up from my head), and what specific yarn colours and brand I was using. I think this is what kept me away from it for so long. I did remember the hook size, but i'd totally forgotten how i'd put it together and was just so lazy to have to deconstruct one to find out all over again. (Seriously, I should have spent a few minutes looking up hexagon patterns on the net as it would have been far quicker and easier! Sometimes I just seem to go the REALLY LONG way round to achieving something!)

Going away and discovering my 'inspiration' for it again, thrust it back into the limelight. As I worked on it, I started to get really obsessed with getting it finished as quickly as possible. Baby Bear decided he REALLY liked it and wanted it on his bed ASAP, so I needed to put everything else aside and just concentrate on it. By the time it came to putting the border on, I was like a woman posessed. I had so many ideas I wanted to try.

So.....here it is.....the finished article.......

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The Circus Patchwork Crochet Blanket


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I LOVE it. I TRULY love it. And Baby Bear gave it the thumbs up too! Phew! It has been well used.......and abused! The pictures I took were hurridly taken whilst there was a brief rain respite, and the sun sheepishly poked his head out of the grey clouds. But it was really windy and it was very hard to keep the thing from blowing everywhere. I also had to prise it from Baby Bear to get some shots. So please forgive the ruffled-ness of it. It did lie flat and look decent when I had finished it. But, so what. It was made to be used and abused by a five year old!

Okay.......so.......I know that some of you have wanted the pattern and/or a tutorial. Well, I have said on many occasion, that i'm pretty pants at that sort of thing. I make it WAY too complicated and get myself in a muddle. You know, this was a pretty standard hexagon, and I was sure that I could find something that had already been done online to point you in the direction of.

So......after a search.....what did I come to? Well, the very lovely Lucy of Attic24!  I'm laughing! I should have visited Lucy right from the very beginning! Her hexagon is very similar to the one I used. The difference being these little ones:

I used a 3mm hook to make my hexagons very tight. I wanted a tighter, thicker look to a block this time round. I have found that vintage crochet blankets seem, more often than not, to be quite compact and crocheted on smaller hooks. This is what I was aiming for.

In round 4 - instead of doing 3 chains and then single crocheting in every cluster space, I alternated with 3 chains and then 5 chains. The 5 chains became the corners of the hexagon in round 5.

In round 5 - I did 4 UK TR per cluster and not 3 as Lucy did. This just made it more compact.

So, that was my version, but I would highly recommend Lucy's pattern, as it is wonderfully written and so easy to follow.

Now, I also had the idea that I wanted to have all the sides to be squared off. I wanted a border, and for what I had in mind, the sides HAD to be straight. This meant I had to learn how to make a half hexagon for two sides and a sort of hexagon 'tip' for the other two sides.

Wow, my brain had to work hard! The half hexagon was okay. It was just a case of cutting the pattern in half, allowing for uk trebles to join your blocks to each other. After working a few, I sort of got what I was doing, but I think some varied ever so slightly!!!!!! The hexagon tips needed slightly more brain thought. I just looked at the hexagon tips to work out what stitches I needed, then worked it up. It was trial and error really, and as I working on a small hook with a lot of stitches crammed in together, it took a bit of time to be happy with the result.

A part of me REALLY wanted to go to town with the border. The patchwork colours were bright and eclectic. A bit mad really, and I thought about making a border equally as mad. But, common sense prevailed and I settled for a fairly colourful one, but one that didn't distract from the bright hexagons.

I loved this blanket for the fact that there was a lot of colour, yet there were minimal ends to sew in. I am used to having hundreds of the little blighters to sew in, but this was super quick for me. The only one thing that seemed to bother me a little bit, was that, because the the hexagons were full and half when doing the first row of my border, it made the stitches 'craggy' and not fluid. In my perfectionists eye, it bothered me, in my it's handmade and original eye, it was ok. So it's not a big issue, but that was my only gripe!

I used scraps of yarn to make this. That's why it is so eclectic! All dk and acrylic mixes in many brands.

So..... I managed to pull a patchwork blanket out of the bag.....and more importantly, Baby Bear has a huge love and affection for it. So job done! It looks lovely on his bed and I now have an idea burning to revamp something to sort of match with it, in an un-matchy kind of way! More on that when I get round to it!

It's not a blanket that is everyone's cup of tea. Mr H finds it a hard one to love! Good job it's not on our bed then! he he!

Right....I think I have waffled on for quite a bit.

I was working two other projects alongside this one, one of which is finished too. So when the weather gets a little better, I shall do a ta-dah for that also. I have a bit to go to get the third one done, but my enthusiasm has rocketed now this and the other one have been completed. Wow, maybe three ta-dahs in as many weeks!

Have a beautiful day all

xxx