The waffle blanket

This year I have discovered a new love!

If you too like texture

 and want to make the thickest, most squishy, dreamiest blanket ever,

 then take a look at the waffle stitch blanket.

For my first adventure in texture and colour,

 I used the

 red rainbow pack

 in my favourite 

Stylecraft Special DK

 with a 3.5mm hook.

The colour packs I have put together also have 2 balls of cream,

 as they were originally set up for the rainbow granny blanket.

I learnt how to do this stitch,

 using an excellent video tutorial on You Tube

 by Olivia aka Girly Bunches

You can find this 

HERE

It really is a very easy stitch and you will soon be hooking,

 while talking and watching tv.

This blanket has the most fabulous texture,

 with interesting patterns both back (above) and front (below).

I made 2 rows in each colour to achieve this narrow striped design.

Immediately I finished the red rainbow,

 I was fast onto another using 

the pink rainbow pack

I was totally hooked and enjoying every stitch.

 Colour therapy from this fabulous colours

 and crochet therapy from the amazing stitch.

 It soon became easy and I was hooking away fast from memory.

When you look at the waffle stitch from different directions,

 it has different looks. The texture is fascinating

 and I soon found myself running my fingers along the waffles.

It is so very tactile and sure to be a winner for children in pushchairs!

To frame my blankets I chose a plain linen stitch border in 1 colour.

 This sits nice and flat and makes a stunning frame to the blanket.

Linen Stitch border

(UK crochet terms)

Foundation row ~ dc in corner, 2 chain, repeat, dc 2 chain, all the way round,

 spacing out the dcs so as to make your blanket edge straight and flat,

 we do not want a frilly blanket here!

Round 1 ~ dc in dc, 2 dc in chain loop, repeat with 3 dc in corner stitch.

Round 2 ~ 3 dc in corner stitch, chain 1 miss a dc, dc in next dc, 

chain 1 miss a dc repeat then slip stitch into first stitch

.

TURN YOUR WORK 

so you are now working from the back

Round 3 ~ dc in the chain space, chain 1 , dc in next chain space chain 1 

repeat with 3 dc in the corner, slip stitch into first stitch. Turn your work.

Turning the work after every round helps to keep the border nice and flat.

Keep working until you have the required depth of border.

It can be left with a nice straight edge as here in the pink rainbow blanket

or

an edging can be added as in my pink/grey blanket (see later).

For this I changed to a different colour

 and made the final round in reverse linen stitch.

 This feels strange at first working backwards,

 but you soon get into the rhythm of it.

After the bright waffles, orders started coming in

 and I had the pleasure of making 2 grey blankets for customers.

Lemon, silver and white

then candyfloss, silver and white

Stylecraft Special DK.

Instagram

is the most fabulous place for crochet inspiration.

Try searching for appropriate hashtags

 and you will have hours of pleasure discovering new people to follow

 and new ideas to make!

 I was inspired by many wonderful blankets and crocheters

 and next discovered the square waffle blanket.

For this pattern I learnt from another excellent video tutorial on You Tube,

 by Natasha aka Buttonnose Crochet, you can find this 

HERE

This time I chose blues,

denim, cloud blue, silver and white,

and again the reverse linen stitch edging 

completed my square.

By now I was totally smitten with this

gorgeous

squishy

warm

cosy

blanket

and decided I needed one in my own life!

Sitting under a blanket to rest is a big part of everyday life for me.

So it wasn't long before I had picked out the beautiful soft vintage colours

of  Stylecraft Special DK.

I used 8 shades,

 duck egg, parma violet, grape, pale rose,

 mocha, vintage peach, mushroom and grey.

My border this time was made in stripes,

 using up the oddments I had left and I like the simple straight edge here.

If you too have caught the waffle bug

 do share your photos in my Facebook group

Crochet Inspired By The Patchwork Heart

and use

 #inspiredbythepatchworkheart 

as a tag on Instagram.

It makes me so happy to see what you are making!

My blog has recently been updated with 2 new pages

Tutorials

and 

Blankets

to make it easier for you to find things again in future.

Yoy can find these pages listed at the top right of the blog.

Take a look now and see what a wonderful resource this is!

Happy hooking friends

Heather

x x x

The Patchwork Heart Colour Packs at Knitting Network

Hello my hooky friends,

 I have some very exciting news to share with you!

I have teamed up with the lovely people at 

Knitting Network

 and am delighted to announce that they will be stocking my 

Colour Packs

from now on!

I have received fantastic service

 when buying yarn from Knitting Network

 and want to offer you this fabulous service too.

You can look forward to

A Price Match Promise - best price or they refund the difference

Same Day Dispatch - they aim to dispatch orders received before 4pm

Excellent Customer Service - a readily available contact number should you need it

Free Royal Mail Delivery - when you spend over £20

Worldwide delivery in eco friendly packaging

A fabulous selection of patterns as seen in Woman's Weekly.

As well as making my colour packs available to purchase,

 I will also be working with patterns from Knitting Network

 and sharing ideas with you each month on

 Instagram 

and 

Facebook 

Baby blanket 64cm square

 To open up my Colour Pack Shop

I have begun with 2 rainbow packs
which are always great favourites

Child's blanket 88cm square

I have put together 2 packs for you to choose from

Each pack contains 

7 colours with 2 balls of cream

in my favourite

Stylecraft Special DK

This pack is enough to make

 a baby blanket 64cm square

or

a child's blanket 88cm square     

with plenty of colours left to add to your stash for future projects.

How to make a granny square blanket

If you are new to crocheting

 you will find the following tutorials helpful

(click on the links to take you to the tutorials)

Granny Square Tutorial

Sewing In Ends

Simple Edging

So now all that you need is your yarn,

you can buy the packs here

PINK RAINBOW

RED RAINBOW

These colour packs are exclusive to Knitting Network.

I do not sell colour packs anywhere else.

Don't forget to post your work on Instagram and use the tag

#inspiredbythepatchworkheart

so I can see what you are making.

Watch this space,

you can look forward to more packs being added,

including some popular favourite blanket packs from the past.

Take a look at some new additions to my blog page here

for all your favourite 

blankets 

tutorials

and 

colour packs

For future reference you can access these pages at the top right of my blog.

Wishing you all a happy hooky day,

remember crochet is therapy and makes for a happy day!

Heather

x x x

The Black Forest Blanket

This beautiful colour recipe began years ago,

 with an order for a customer. As I worked with these

 fabulous shades of Stylecraft Special DK

 it conjured up images of chocolate cake and berries

 and so the name Black Forest, from the gateaux, was born!

The colour recipe has attracted so much attention from my followers.

You need 1 each of

 walnut mocha stone cream plum grape pale rose

 and 4 parchment for joining.
You can buy this yarn
HERE

I've used the colour pack for many creations and it always looks fabulous.

If you are a beginner a simple granny square is the place to start.

You can follow the instructions for

The Beginners Blanket

A cushion is a quick simple project.

You can follow my 

Wrap Around Cushion Cover tutorial

HERE

Recently I've added a custom order slot to my Etsy shop,

 so that people can order a hot water bottle at any time of year

 and have it made in their own choice of colours and design.

 The black forest hot water bottle was born

 and is proving to be a popular request!

You can visit my Etsy shop

HERE

So it seemed a good idea to use this colour pack for a new blanket.

I have made many of these over the years

 but they have all been given away,

 so at last its time to have one here at Patchwork House.

The pattern I have used is the Starburst Flower by Jane Brocket.

It is in the book called

The Gentle Art of Knitting (it contains some crochet too!)

and was also in issue 2 of Mollie Makes magazine.

You can buy the book HERE from just £3.44

There are also many free patterns available,

you can try a search for starburst flower and its also called sunburst granny. 

You will find patterns on Ravelry, Pinterest and You Tube.

Planning with this pattern is easy

 as each square measures approx 10cm when I use a 4mm hook.

I have made 144 flowers which I arranged in 12 rows of 12,

this has made a blanket 120cm square.

 You could also do 10x14 or 11x13 if you prefer a rectangular throw.

Before you start you need to the maths.

I need 144 middles and have 7 colours.

7x20=140

so if I make 20 of each colour I will then need 4 more to make 144.

So the production line began making 20 of round 1 in each colour.

I love to work as a production line. You brain and fingers remember

 the stitch and if you make 20 from the same ball of yarn

 you are not wasting time changing colours.

When each middle is finished I make a reef knot with the 2 tails. 

This will not show but will ensure that your work will never come undone.

 Leave tails of about 4 inches / 10cm.

I like to keep my work organised on a tray

then I can see at a glance where I am up to and nothing gets lost!

Next its time to plan round 2 and this is where my fun starts!

 I absolutely love this stage of planning the colour combinations!

 If you follow this system, its really easy to make sure

 all 144 flowers are unique and that you have no repeats.

Lay out your 7 balls.

Take 1 set of middles, here I am using plum.

Share out the middles so that there are 3 on some and 4 on others.

So you can see here there will be 4 plum middles with a cream round 2, 

3 with a walnut round 2 and of course there are none by the plum.

Take the next colour, here I have grape and again share them out

 so there are 3 on some and 4 on others.

I try to keep an equal number to ensure the finished blanket will look balanced

Keep on doing this with all your middles until you have 20 lined up by each ball,

 then add the 4 extras,1 on each of any 4 colours.

If you have children or pets, you will now need to put each ball of yarn

 with their 20 or 21 middles, in a small plastic bag to keep them safe! 

This also makes your work portable

 and easy to grab when you want to take your crochet out.

That little bit of planning now makes it easy for you to work efficiently on round 2.

Sitting down with a cuppa (in a matching mug of course),

 I can now quickly make 20 round 2 from the same colour

 and have the satisfaction of a pile done in no time!

I love the starburst flower pattern as each round is a different stitch,

 which adds lovely variety to your work. So again working

 in batches helps your fingers and brain to pick up the rhythm

 of the pattern quickly and before you know it you've got another pile done!

Now something I'm always asked about is what do I do with the ends.

 Some of you seem to hate them,but I never worry about these.

 If you want colour you have ends, that's just part of the process.

 In this pattern its easy as the stitches are very close,

 you can hold the ends from round 1 and 2 at the back of your work

 and crochet over them. Then when you've finished round 2 simply cut off any remaining tails from round 1.

A few days later all the round 2 is complete

 and now its time to plan round 3 in exactly the same way as you did before.

 Make sure as you plan that you never repeat a colour in any flower,

 it should have 3 different colours. Again sort them,

 so that you have 20 on each ball and the 4 extras can go on any. 

I find great pleasure in seeing the flowers accumulating in my basket.

You can see here the small balls wound from the leftover yarn. So you have used nearly all of the colour pack making 144 flowers. If you want to make a larger blanker simply order 2 packs.

This tray looks so edible doesn't it!

Cookies, macaroons or chocolate cake,

 whatever is your fancy! Working with this pack

 is sure to make you want to indulge in some lovely hooky snacks!

Finally its time to join and the fun now is laying out the 144 flowers in 12 rows of 12.

I try to keep the layout balanced by having roughly the same number of each outer colour in each row. It takes some time and several  rethinks but is a really worthwhile activity.

When I have arrived at my final plan I label each row

then stack up the rows in my basket for safe keeping.

 Even though we have no pets or small children,

 I'm not risking my layout being disturbed!

The next stage is to make the circles into squares.

In the pattern this is round 4.

 If you do make round 4, you would then be ready to join your squares

 either by sewing or crocheting them together.

 I have 2 tutorials that would be helpful here

either

Crochet together from the front

or

Crochet together from the back

However my preferred way of joining for this blanket

 is using the continuous join as you go method.

 This way the whole blanket is joined in 1 go, with no cutting of the yarn.

 This means a huge saving of time

 as there are 288 ends less by not making each square!

 Wow think about that!

Learn this method and you will never go back!

If you have never done this before

 start by reading my original tutorial,

 for joining squares using the continuous join as you go.

HERE

 This will teach you the direction in which to work

 and how to join 1 row and then add the 2nd and the 3rd and so on.

Once you understand the direction to work in

the only difference is for how to add circles instead of squares.

You will need to read the new tutorial for this

HERE

So you join the circles in row 1

then add row 2

row 3 and 4

 and before you know it its starting to feel more like

 a blanket than a scarf!

I was delighted to realise that this black forest colour recipe

 goes perfectly with my lovely chair!

 I like to work here in the mornings

 as the daylight is very good here with 2 windows behind me. 

So this is where the blanket is going to live!

The continuous join as you go method,

 produces a lovely texture to the blanket, adding an extra dimension I think.

Finally when all your rows are added

 and the joining is complete, its time for edging the blanket.

As you can see here in this picture below, the edge is not quite straight.

So to begin with I always add a foundation row before making the edging,

 to level this out.

I simply made 1 round of dc, (UK crochet terms)

 1 in each stitch and 3 in the corners,

 but where my hook is pointing we need to level out the dip.

 So at this point I used trebles as a taller stitch is needed.

You are going to treble 2 together.

In the corner of the right square make half a treble

 and leave it on the hook (2 loops),

 then in the corner of the left square make half a treble, (4 loops)

now pull the yarn through all 4 creating 1 stitch. 

Continue around the whole blanket

 and finish the round with a slip stitch into the first dc.

For round 2 I made a very simple edging.

Chain 3, dc in the same stitch.

Miss a stitch.

Slip stitch in next stitch,

repeat.

This edging will nicely go around the corners

 and finishes off the blanket well.

If you would rather add a deep border

 simply order 1 extra ball of parchment and you will then be able to do that.

It has been a pleasure to share this lovely colour pack with you.

Please remember to share your photos of your work in the

 Facebook Group

 I'd love to see your work in these colours.

Writing tutorials about my crochet is my work. Unpaid work.

 To produce this blog post has taken weeks of crochet,

 hours of photography, editing of photographs

 and days spent writing at my computer.

It is my pleasure to share my work and to encourage others to have a go.

 Crochet brings me such joy and satisfaction

 and if I can pass this on to others who may also suffer with chronic illness,

 then I have job satisfaction. The rhythmic action of crochet

 and the concentration required takes me to a better place

 and I hope it will help you too.

If you have enjoyed this blog post

 please consider making a donation via Paypal

 to help support my work here at The Patchwork Heart.

You can donate using the app

 on the sidebar of the blog when viewed on a computer.

I hope you have many happy hours with your hook

enjoy the crochet therapy

Heather

x x x