murat
This week has been a busy one for me, a week of catching up. A mixture of happy social times spent catching up with friends as well as some very time consuming and brain numbing hours spent catching up with my accounts and taxes. It’s the usual merry jumble of January and I do quite enjoy the fullness of my days when they run like this. Even when I’m spending hours at my laptop crunching numbers into a spreadsheet, it reminds me how amazingly grateful I am to be making a living out of something I love so much.
One of the friends I had coffee with this week is someone I’ve not had a chance to catch up with since before the pandemic at the start of 2020 – it’s hard to get my head around the fact that this was almost three years ago. Crazy, eh? We were chatting a lot about our shared passion for yarn, designing and creating, and the ups and downs of working from home. She asked about my studio which sadly I don’t have any more, and I told her that I mostly work from the dining table, the fireside or the sofa these days. I do miss my studio a lot (you can read more about it in this post), but working from home has some huge benefits too.
I took the above photo for Instagram, a quick snap of the sofa earlier in the week where I had been sat crocheting my Springfrost blanket. I don’t know how many of you reading here also use Instagram? I love it for the visuals and the inspiration, and of course the wonderful crochet community on there, but sometimes it can be a bit of a strange platform for sharing photos.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, I love the idea of sharing images that inspire and look good, but I’m a very in-the-moment person and I much prefer the authentic, un-edited, un-filtered, more spontaneous approach to taking photographs. There is a LOT of “styling” on Instagram, it’s creative faffing taken to a whole new level, and honestly I just don’t often have the patience for it. So the above photo for example is completely un-styled, and shows my sofa exactly as it was when I got up and plopped my blanket down with the hook still stuck in my uncompleted row. I happened to turn round and thought how lovely it all looked in that moment, and decided to snap the scene with my phone ready to be used a few days later on Instagram. It’s far from perfect, but then that’s real life for you and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Seeing a snapshot of my “working from home life” described in a photo honestly makes me so full of gratitude I feel like I could burst wide open with it. When I find myself craving more space, or pining for my old studio, I quickly remind myself how bloomin’ lucky I am that I get to be at home with J and the Little People and crochet blankets for a living. Lucky, lucky me.
I had to show you the above photo – this was just moments after I’d snapped my square image for Insta, and the kitty obviously assumed that the blankety sofa was being prepared especially for her. My blankets are like a magnet for her and she can’t resist their special brand of cosy. I know many of you share your crochet blankets with your furry friends (or rather, the four legged members of the family insist on inserting themselves whenever crochet is about), so I thought it would be fun to share a few cutesome furry photos this week with you.
♥ Kathy had to stop hooking mid row (don’t you just hate it when that happens?!) because her kitty decided that the Springfrost made the perfect bed.
♥ Oh Charlie, just look at your contented face! Helen had obviously laid the blanket out especially for your pleasure!
♥ This sweet kitty is also appreciating the cosiness of a crochet blanket – Kate has chosen a gorgeous palette of “peacock feather colours” and I think it looks amazing.
♥ Christine also has a kitty who has stopped her hooky time mid-row…I mean, how could you possibly think that this blanket could be moved? The cat’s in charge!
♥ Sheelagh’s kitty made me smile, I mean, how perfect is that crochet-lined basket for a quick little cat-nap?!
♥ Nicola, oh my goodness, this photo made me hoot with laughter, so funny!! There’s no way you could ignore that cheeky face, is there?
It’s not just the cats that appreciate a fine crochet blanket, there are plenty of dogs who intervene when it’s hooky time……
♥ Lynsay’s dog doesn’t seem to mind that the blanket is all wrapped up, it makes the perfect pillow, thank you!
♥ Oh, just look at those puppy-dog eyes! Sue’s gorgeous blanket is already well loved by the looks of it.
♥ Denise’s Springfrost is also getting a lot of love and you can just see the crochet blanket appreciation in that sweet face.
♥ Clare is generously sharing her Springfrost with the gorgeous Luther, what a photogenic pair they are!
♥ And lastly, I know this is Fireside rather than Springfrost, but I really had to share it with you. Lynette’s kitty is an absolute beauty and a natural in front of the camera – I mean, the blanket looks stunning but the kitty really steals the show hands down. I love it!
Thank you again for taking time to share your blanket journey with us all on social media, the Facebook groups are buzzing with happy Springfrost vibes and the #springfrostcal hashtag on Instagram is a true feast for the eyes. The Attic24 online community is something very special, so thank you for being a part of it xx
Is it just me, or do you also think that the weeks are flying by? January is behind us now and we’re at week 5 of the CAL already……I just can’t get my head around it! They do say time flies when you’re having fun, so lets just put it down to that – lots of blankety fun.
Week five of the Springfrost CAL will bring your blanket pretty close to completion as we’ll be crocheting another 18 stripes this week.
I hope that you’re still enjoying the soothing rhythm of crocheting this lovely stitch? I’m love love loving it and think it’s one of the most relaxing patterns I’ve ever worked on. I had some lovely friends visiting me last weekend who you might know – a well known sock designer and a talented crochet author – so we spent a lot of time chatting and yarning together. It’s one of the things I adore about making striped blankets with a simple pattern repeat, it makes for the perfect social project. My Springfrost rows happily grew all day in the café and then later with a glass or two of vino in the bar, and then into the next day over morning coffee.
Mostly when I’m working on a blanket, it stays folded up in my yarn bag or else it’s strewn across the furniture with a child under it or a kitty snuggled into it. So when I need to take my weekly photographs for these CAL blog posts, it always takes me a little bit by surprise to see it all laid out neat and flat. It’s not often my blankets ever get to be horizontal and smoothed out in real life as they are very, very well used household items that are more often folded, piled or in some sort of nest-shape.
I do admit I get a genuine thrill each and every week when I stand above my blanket all laid out on the floor and get to see it in it’s entirety – it makes me SO HAPPY!!!!!!
So the above image is after week 5 has been completed, which is 87 stripes in total. I would say that this is a good length for a blanket (it’s measuring around 160cm long at this point), and the proportions look good too. I shall leave it up to you, but if you wish to stop after part 5 and wait for the border instructions then you absolutely can do that.
I’ll be adding the final set of stripes next week in part 6, but it won’t be the full 18….I’ll explain more in a bit.
Aww Tilly….I love how much you love my blankets!!
Right, lets get the next set of stripes under way……..
Here is the colour info for Part 5 of the Springfrost Blanket. Click on the following link for the printable worksheet…
Remember that this list of colours refers to the stripes, so crochet two rows of each colour.
70. Baby Blue
71. Mushroom
72. Duck Egg
73. Blue Marl
74. Cloud Blue
75. Meadow
76. Parma Violet
77. Lincoln
78. Pale Rose
79. Duck Egg
80. A Hint of Silver
81. Baby Blue
82. Spearmint
83. White
84. Meadow
85. Mushroom
86. Powder pink
87. Wisteria
NOTE : If you are making a larger double/king blanket with two yarn packs, there will be an extra set of stripes given in part 6 for you to add on if you wish.
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT YARN QUANTITIES
As you start to work through part 5 of your blanket, it’s a good idea to take stock of where you’re at in terms of the size of your blanket and the yarn that you’re using. Hopefully most of you took my advice and made a tension sample before you began, so your measurements shouldn’t be too wildly different from mine.
I use digital scales to check how my yarn is being used as I work through my blanket – ordinary digital kitchen scales work just fine for this as you only need a general measurement in grams. I can also highly recommend these pocket scales too – they are small enough to tuck in your yarn bag and work a treat for weighing yarn. You can find the ones I have on Amazon ((here)).
Each stripe should be using approximately 12g of yarn.
As you work through part five, most of the colours will have been crocheted into six stripes in total – this means you should have used around 75g of yarn, and have 25g left.
When we work the border, we will need approximately 20g of each border colour.
Please, please use your own judgement with your yarn quantities – spread your blanket out, measure the length of it and decide how long you’re happy with. Keep in mind that this is a squishy, stretchy crochet pattern, and your blanket will stretch slightly with use. Weigh your yarn balls, and please do feel free to stop working your stripes if your blanket is long enough, or your yarn is running low! I really want you to have enough yarn to work a cute border to finish off your stripes.
I hope you have a lovely week and find pockets of time to really unwind and enjoy some top notch crochet therapy.
x
♥ SPRINGFROST BLANKET INTRODUCTION
