Rainbow Granny Stripe Crochet Blanket

I can't stay away from crochet for long, and I was eager to start a new blanket even before I finished the Murano blanket towards the end of May. Having made six crochet blankets in the past two years, I thought it was time to make a striped design rather than squares. I've long admired Lucy of Attic24 and am in awe of the colours she uses and her generosity of sharing patterns, so I wanted to try making a granny stripe blanket too. Spotlight was having a sale (A$1.99 for 100g ball) on Thorobred acrylics so I bought 10 balls to practice on before I use the beautiful Stylecraft Special DK yarn I bought from Deramores earlier this year.

I chained 240 and had real trouble crocheting the first row as my stitches are quite tight (I'm a rather intense crocheter!). I ended up using a 5cm hook to make the foundation chain, and then used a 4cm hook to crochet the rest of the blanket. Yeah, problem solved! I'm not sure whether I followed Lucy's pattern correctly (probably not), but after I made the chain of 240, I chained 3, * skipped 2 stitches, worked 3 trebles into one stitch and chained 1 and then repeated from *. Thankfully I did start with 240 chain stitches, but the first row looked weird and curled. Despite this, I continued to crochet, changing colour after the third row, and it started to look alright (to me anyway since I can only crochet 2 kinds of stitches). I figured it curled because the foundation chain was too tight, and I solved this by spraying the area with water and having a little stretch and iron, and voila - the blanket is now even!

Yep, I wear pink polka dot slippers!

Do you know what the best thing about making a striped blanket? Minimal ends to sew! I see many granny stripe crochet blankets in the future, and considering buying another lot of Murano yarn as the colour variation would be gorgeous. I crocheted three rounds for the border using navy blue yarn, and the blanket measures 100cm x 140cm. OK, next crochet project...