New Project on my Hook

As I mentioned earlier, I have a New Project on my Hook! Woo Hoo! I had been mulling over what I could start making after Christmas but hadn't actually come to a decision - there are some new CAL's  out there in blog-land but I hadn't seen one that took my fancy. I was also still wondering what on earth to get my Dad for Christmas. He's 86, doesn't want anything and doesn't really need anything either. Then it struck me - I could combine the new project and the present and make him a lap blanket! He's rather fond of my Olympic Foot Blanket, so I know it will get used. I wont' make it with squares though as he'd probably have to wait until next winter for it -it will be a stripey one made with aran yarn so it will work up quickly.

I made a quick trip to the wool shop on Christmas Eve and bought five balls of King Cole Big Value Aran, in five shades -

I don't know about you but to me they conjure up pictures of Woodland Walks, with damp leafy smells and birdsong. They're quite masculine colours too - although you could easily swap some of the colours for autumn shades, or spring and so on.

I'm an avid fan of  Lucy of Attic24 and and she has a CAL starting soon using Moorland colours - I may have been influenced by her colours when choosing mine!!

I knew she'd done a simple blanket once that would be perfect for a man. I had to hunt through a few of her (many) blankets until I found the one I was thinking of, her Cosy Stripe Blanket. A simple pattern consisting of two rows of trebles, then two rows of grannies.
Once the present was unwrapped and the colours approved, I hooked up a little sample to see what my tension was like with aran and also tried a little variation on Lucy's pattern.

If you follow the link and look closely at her photos, you see that the gaps between the grannies are only really visible on the first row of each pair. I wanted them to be visible on both rows. After a bit of trial and error I found a solution. When I work the first row of trebles on top of the grannies (if you'll pardon the expression!), I do the following -
*Treble into the 1st st of each granny, treble into the 2nd st of each granny, then yarn over hook and put through the 3rd st and pull through a loop (3 loops on your hook), now put the hook through the gap between the pair of grannies and pull through a loop (4 loops on your hook), yarn over hook and pull through 3 loops, yarn over and through he last 2 loops*. Repeat * to * to the end of the row.
This has the effect of opening up the gap between the grannies without increasing the stitch count, or making a bulky stitch either. Did I explain how to do it well enough?? Once you get the hang of it it's really easy. You can see in the photo below that my gaps look just a little bigger than Lucy's. Not that I'm trying to suggest that there's anything wrong at all with Lucy's gaps!!!

It's working up really quickly - I've done a foot already and haven't spent that much time on it yet. I had a little photo shoot earlier while the sun was shining, although looking at them now the colours have come out wrong. The grey looks pale blue and the browns look grey. Ah well, never mind. What do you think??

I should be finishing some other projects really but who can resist starting something new?! I've created a Ravelry project to keep track of it too and will try and post regular updates.

That's all for now - talk again soon!! T xXx