Helloooo!!

New project on the go….

I’ve been wanting to crochet a ripple pattern blanket since I finished my Granny Squares one in May. My favourite ripples are at Playing At Craft, The Lazy Crafter and Attic 24. The great thing is, Lucy at Attic 24 has written a very clear photo tutorial here which is great for beginners like me.

My yarn arrived a couple of days ago. It is Stylecraft 100% Acrylic Double Knit so it didn’t break the bank. It was actually recommended to me by the lovely Trish at Made by Patch. Her blog is well worth a look. She mainly does crochet but there are several other strings to her bow. Go and see for yourselves!

Here is my yarn. I have two of each of eight colours. Maybe there’ll be some left for other hooky magic 🙂

The pattern suggested you should try a practice piece first which turned out fine. You can see how clear Lucy’s pattern is. I shrunk the photos before printing it to save trees 🙂

All going well…so back along the other way for row 2.

I was happy with the trial run so I started the foundation chain for real. It seemed like a never ending first row. I had enough chain for 308 stitches plus 3 chains and needed to end on the correct stitch. I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t work out! In case you don’t know already, the ripples are formed by a series of trebles, decreases, trebles, increases then repeating all the way along. (I think trebles are doubles in the States but don’t quote me on that. )

Now the 2nd row…

Time to change colour. That will hold my interest in a big project.

Nice colours but I’m beginning to worry. I kept calm (my OH would disagree here!) and carried on. Have you spotted my reason for concern?

Maybe you can now…. The foundation chain is too tight and is causing the edge to flick up 😦

So I contacted Lucy the pattern writer…..Is this supposed to happen or should I have made a much slacker chain? If I had to start again to put it right, so be it. Within minutes Lucy advised this is a common problem. I should have done a slacker chain or used a larger hook to make it. Oh well, time to wind the wool up and start again. NO!!! That was the cry of my OH who strongly suggested I leave the first one intact and get the new one going before pulling the first one out. I wish I had his wisdom 😉 I didn’t really mind having to start again. It was only an evening’s work and I’d enjoyed doing it and getting used to the pattern.

So I started again and I hope you can see the difference. I certainly can. It was worth keeping the first one just to see the difference here 😀

Then more rows were added.

All is well that ends well so they say 🙂 Thanks to Lucy and Missy Patch again. You both did a grand job:-)

I can’t put it down!

Avis x