Saturday 21 June 2014

The Nursery Blanket

Hello,
It's been a hot day and this is my first post so please be patient with me.
Lots of people have been asking about my latest blanket - the Nursery Blanket - so I thought this was the time to try and finally start a blog in order to explain it.

Two weeks ago I asked my younger daughter what she would like to give her nursery teachers as a leaving present, she finishes next week as she is starting school after the summer. I had anticipated a card, or two and had expected chocolates or some such as her gift suggestion but NO. She announced that she wanted me to make a blanket for them to have in the family room as they didn't have any blankets in there are the moment. Our house is full of crochet blankets and she felt this was something that was lacking at nursery.

It was a lovely sentiment so I agreed, quickly thinking up simple and easy blankets I could quickly rattle up in the ten days I had to finish it. However little miss had other ideas and pointed to a blanket that lives in our house and said could I do something similar to it. This is the blanket she wanted me to replicate Lulu's rainbow blanket. This blanket is based on Bears rainbow blanket by the Purl Bee and the pattern can be found here Bears Rainbow Blanket

So Off we went upstairs to pick yarn, me quietly thinking at least she picked solid blocks of colour, that will be a bit easier. She picked some variegated Ice yarns, Ice magic Light to be exact, in eight different shades, two blues, green, yellow, orange pink, fuchsia and purple> I got mine direct from Ice Yarns in Turkey.


So I got started that evening. I am a working mum so my crochet is mainly restricted to evening once my girls are sleeping. I decided to do simple solid granny squares to give the blocks of colour she liked and estimated that I would need 8-10 squares in each colour to make a good sized blanket. I could write out the pattern for you, but it is available freely all across the internet and in pretty much any crochet book you care to pick up, a good tutorial I saw recently was by Wink of A Creative Being her description and photos are clear to follow so if you need help try this link.

It took five evenings of Solid crochet but I got all the blocks made and they looked lovely, it almost seemed a shame to do anything with them and we had lots of fun laying them out in different ways and admiring the colours 



Next we had to decide how to edge the squares, my daughter was pushing for black, but quite honestly my eyes we not up for it so we agreed on Stylecraft DK in Parchment, not to dark and not to bright, a colour that should enable the squares to be the focus. The next couple of nights were spent edging all 100 squares with a final round in parchment.

The next decision was how to lay them out to make a blanket, I had a few ideas of my own, however this was not a blanket of my design so I gave the squares to my daughters, explaining that their blanket had to be 8 squares across and 10 down and left them to it, we used a camera to record all their efforts 


As you can see they were at this job for quite some time and came up with many different layouts before deciding on the winner. my daughters favourite colour is purple so untimely she decided the heart of the blanket should be purple, and that the other colours should spread out from there. Next I had to join them. I did this by putting the squares right sides facing each other and did a slip stitch into the outside edge only of the treble crochets from the parchment row. They were all joined with a couple of days to spare so I quickly did a very simple edge, also in parchment. 


To do the border I did one round of half trebles, the next round I did htr, ch2 (skip two tr from previous round) her, all the way round. the next round I did 3htr in each 2ch space. And then it was done. a quick wash and it was ready to go



SO we parcelled it up and off to nursery we went, there is only one day a week Lulu's two favourite teachers are there so we had to take it then, and I think they liked it, when I left Lulu and her teacher were busy arranging it on a chair in the playroom, her teachers favourite colour is also purple so they were making sure its purple heart was right in the middle.



I hope you like it as much as we do

Kirsty

14 comments:

  1. Hi Kirsty. I just love your crochet and am always amazed at how quickly you can make a blanket. Keep up the good work and I look forward to reading more blog posts from you. Jean

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thank you, I haven't a clue what I'm doing, you'd never know my day job involves a computer, at the moment I think my six year old could do better, although I might have the edge in spelling!

      Delete
  2. Stunning as always!! And it's great to see you have started your blog at long last!! Look forward to reading more...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Debs, I am totally out of my comfort zone here, no idea how to set this up x

      Delete
  3. What a great story. I am in awe of your quick crocheting! I am so slow- it would take me years to make a blanket like that!
    It looks lovely and I reckon the Nursery children will enjoy cosying up in it.
    Sarah x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thanks Sarah, you say you're slow but you do such creative things, I just don't have the patience x

      Delete
  4. I love the story just as much as I love the blanket. The nursery would have been thrilled to have been given such a creative and thoughtful gift. I'm glad you've started blogging. I love your Instagram feed and look forward to hearing more bout your crochet projects. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, the plus side of waiting years to set up the blog is that I have loads of projects I could write about, just got to decide which to do next now!!

      Delete
  5. well you have certainly inspired me to get my hook out - it must be over 20 years since I did any crochet - your blog is great, keep it up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tricia, thank you, I hope you enjoy some hooky time!!

      Delete
  6. Can you please tell me about the quality of the ice yarn magic?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ingrid, I only started using it a few months ago so can speak for its longevity, but the colours are fabulous and the yarn is lovely and soft, hope that helps x

    ReplyDelete
  8. Just to say my son has just started at this nursery, your blanket is gorgeous. It's on the nursing chair in the family room and got a mention in our introductory tour. Every day we've been my son has cuddled up with it before leaving and I spotted another mother cuddled up with it and her newborn today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thank you, its lovely to hear it is being enjoyed and used exactly as lexie had hoped

      Delete