Blanket mania pt. 2

These are the 4 blankets I made for Christmas last year, 3 for my brother's kids and one for my own! I started about August which seems a little early, but I was planning my November wedding and wanted to get them all done in time. I did, well all except for my son's blanket. I ran out of orange yarn on Christmas Eve, drove like mad to the shops but they were already closed. Bummer! So he got it the day after Boxing day once the shops had opened for the mental Boxing Day sales and I had time to finish the remaining rows. He loves it and calls it his "Rainbow Blanket". It was a great way to use up lots of leftovers I had and wouldn't have used otherwise.

Rainbow Blanket

This one is for my neice, she was 1 last Christmas and I wanted to give her a blanket that was bright but not over-the-top girly or babyish so she could still use it as she got older. I used the leftovers from this one to make the Rainbow Blanket for my son. There was only the one change of colour per square so I didn't bother weaving in the ends as I went, as a result when I'd finished all the squares I abandoned it and started (and completed!) the blankets for her 2 older brothers! I eventually went back and wove them all in, crying and swearing to myself that I'd never, EVER again leave the end-weaving 'til last. Ever.

Bright Blanket

I like to think of this one as the "Forest" Blanket because of the earthy green and brown. My nephew loves bright lime green, but after searching and failing to find the green in question I decided that this colour scheme would still be nice. I'm not really a fan of brown as a colour, but recently I've found that it's actually a pretty good colour for blanket making. The green is almost an army green colour, and the lighter yarn is a varigated cream and beige. This one was fairly easy to make, as it's one large Granny Square. I changed the number of rounds so the further the colour bands came out from the middle, the more rows there were. And I just worked over the ends after a colour change so when it was all done I only had a few little bits to neaten up with a pair of scissors. Ha! Pure genius. Again, a colour scheme that still made the blanket useful as he got older.

Forest Blanket

This next one, for the oldest of my brother's 3, I was going with a "Delft Blue" theme, like the gorgeous pottery from the Netherlands. It was going to be all smaller Granny Squares alternating between the typical Granny Square with a few colour changes and one solid block of colour with a light blue border. But I got bored about halfway through and nearly abandoned it all together (seems to happen at the halfway mark with me - the first half is mega easy then the second half takes forever....) So I stopped and pieced together a 9 square centre. Then I did laps around it until it was big enough to fit the remaining squares as a border. Ta da! A beautiful finished lapghan in 3 shades of blue with cream. Classy!

Delft Blue Blanket