Autumn Jewels

I love the seasons

 and believe them to be a real gift

 from God our creator. 

At this time of year the artist in me

 is so excited by the changing colour palette around us.

 Autumn is one of my favourite seasons

 with its rich warm cosy tones.

 Working with one colour is a wonderful change

 to celebrate the stitch pattern in a block.

 For a while now I have been inspired by the crochet world

 on Instagram and tracked down this wonderful

 Victorian Lattice Square.

This is a free pattern available on Ravelry by Destany Wymore.

It is very well written and includes a chart

 but please note it uses US crochet terms!

You will find a handy conversion here on the

crochet conversions page of my blog.

To add wonderful stitch definition to this block I chose to work in

Deramores Studio DK.

This is a fairly new yarn labelled as 'anti pilling' and I highly recommend it.

It is slightly finer than other popular DK yarns,

 has a gorgeous satin quality and comes in 27 shades.

I chose mist chocolate oatmeal heather aubergine mustard

 amethyst wine and malachite for the squares with 

smoke for the joining and border.

The yarn is a dream to work with gliding over your hook so easily. 

I used a 3mm hook to produce a nice firm texture

 ( half a size smaller than my usual)

 as it is slightly finer yarn than my normal DK.

The squares are large at about 17cm each

and with my tension I was able to make 5 from each 100g ball.

This means I had 45 squares from my 9 shades

so the largest blanket I could make was 

6 rows of 7 using 42 of the blocks.

Please note different people have different tensions

 and yarn used may vary!

For joining and edging I chose the dark grey called smoke.

So to prepare for joining I completed each square

 with an extra round of UK dc making 3 dc in each corner.

This now made the squares about 18cm in width.

Laying the squares out in a rectangle is such fun!

I like to make a random arrangement rather like sudoku

 trying to avoid 2 of the same colour in any row or column!

For joining I prefer to crochet the squares together.

This makes a strong neat join which will not come undone.

I crocheted together from the back with right sides together.

You will find a tutorial 

HERE

The above photo shows clearly how

 the squares are first joined in 1 direction leaving gaps.

Then you join in the other direction

crocheting over the joins to complete the blanket

I was delighted with the results

and think it looks rather like a stained glass window

 with the lead between the coloured glass!

front view of join

Here you can see clearly that this method creates

 a smooth flat finish on the front with a ridge on the back.

back view of join

Just like a picture needs a frame

so a blanket needs a border.

I began with a round of UK trebles.

One of my most used books is

Around the Corner Crochet Borders

by Edie Eckman

I chose a deep lace border to compliment the square.

To complete my blankets I always wash and tumble dry them.

I do not block my squares

 as with my tension I am lucky and they are flat.

 However I do find that a wash at 30c

 with my normal soap powder and fabric softener

 followed by tumble drying on LOW

adds a certain magic to the blanket

 helping to settle the joins and soften the crochet.

My finished blanket of 6x7=42 squares with the border

measured approximately 120x140cm.

This is a great size for a sofa or single bed.

Wishing you all a happy autumn

the perfect time for blanket making!

Heather

X X X