The fully revised, refined - and fully written! - version of the pattern is now published on Ravelry!
It is called The Allsorts Blanket.
Just click the link to pop across to the pattern page.
Please Note: Both the design of this Merino Stripey Blanket and my Tooty Stripey Blanket Pattern, are my own design and property. Whilst I would be delighted if you use them to make your own version, please give me credit as the designer and share a link to the pattern, not the pattern itself. Thank you.
For quite a while I had wanted to make a blanket in pure wool rather than acrylic but it was just too expensive to consider. Until my local store had an amazing sale in January 2018!! They moved lots of yarn around to make a lot of space (to bring in more cheap acrylic) and therefore had to get rid of lots of really nice yarn. And it was all pure wool.... And a lot of it was pure (washable) merino.
It started with 25% off the original price at the beginning of January and I bought 200g of silver grey, and 100g each in two shades of aqua, thinking I could use it to knit some Tail of Two Dragon's Scarves to sell. But I kept going back looking and touching and longing...
The it went down to 50% off. Or should that be up to 50% off. Well, that was it! I went and got a basket and started to FILL it!!
I managed to get 7 x 50g of mid grey, 7 x 50g of cream, 6 x 50g of pale pink. Then I had a think for a few days before I went back and bought 4 x 50g of mid pink.
In the meantime, a friend saw my Tail of Two Dragon's Scarf and asked if I could make one in denim blue for her Mum - as I had seen some merino in the right colour I nipped back and bought it. I needed four and there were 7 left. Luckily I decided to buy the lot, knowing I could at least make a hat with the extra. As it turned out, the extra worked beautifully with the colours I already had! I decided to add in the silver grey I bought right at the start, giving me six shades altogether.
There then came a month of pondering over what design to make. I seriously considered making lots of patterned squares. Or circles in a square. Or hexagons. Or one of the fabulous CAL's I see on instagram. My problem was the fact that I might not be able to get any more yarn if anything ran out... That meant it had to be something that I could adapt as I went if necessary - which basically meant another stripey blanket!!
I did a bit of maths to begin with as I had differing amounts of each colour - like 350g of mid grey, compared with 150g of denim blue! I wanted to be absolutely sure I would have enough left to work at least 2 rows for a border, so put one ball of mid grey and cream to one side.
Because I'm using different brands of yarn, they have different metres of yarn in each 50g ball. If I was using acrylic it probably wouldn't matter as most of them would have the same amount in each ball but with pure wool it makes a big difference. As you can see from the list below, one brand has only one 105 m per ball and another brand is 120m - that's almost 20% more in that particular brand! That will make a big difference as to how far one colour will go compared to another, so I need to be very careful how I plan my colours.
Debbie Bliss Rialto DK Heathers (50g/105m) - Mid grey (23091) x 300g / 630m
Debbie Bliss Rialto DK Heathers (50g/105m) - Mid pink (23077) x 200g / 420m
Debbie Bliss Rialto DK Heathers (50g/105m) - Denim blue (23092) x 150g / 315m
Patons Extra Fine Merino (50g / 120m) - Cream (102) x 300g / 720m
Patons Extra Fine Merino (50g / 120m) - Pale pink x 300g / 720m
Sublime Baby Cashmerino (50g / 115m) - Silver grey x 200g / 460m
That's a total in metres of 3,265m, across six colours. I then calculated this as a percentage per colour (eg, for the mid grey - 630m / 3265m x 100 = approx 20%)
Mid grey - 20% 4 rows
Mid Pink - 15% 3 rows
Denim Blue - 10% 2 rows
Cream - 20% 4 rows
Pale pink - 20% 4 rows
Silver grey - 15% 3 rows
I then worked out a repeating colour pattern, taking into account how much of each colour I had. I couldn't have a ten row repeat as you can't have one and a half rows of silver grey and blue. So I went for a 20 row repeat, with the number of rows per colour shown just above.
To make it easier to work out an exact colour placement, I made 20 little bobbins of colour that I could then move about until I was happy with the arrangement. Luckily I had chosen 3 medium colours and 3 light, so naturally an alternating pattern looked best. This next pic shows the colours listed 1 - 20, and I made sure I ticked each colour as I worked - I was planning on making a blanket nearly five feet wide and if I went wrong that would be a lot of unpicking!!
20 Pale Pink
19Blue
18 Cream
17 Mid Grey
16 Silver
15 Mid pink
14 Pale pink
13 Cream
12 Mid grey
11 Silver
10 Mid pink
9 Pale pink
8 Blue
7 Cream
6 Mid grey
5 Pale pink
4 Silver
3 Mid pink
2 Cream
1 Mid grey
UPDATE: I have recently heard that there are websites that will produce random stripes for you from the colours you have to hand. There was even one that let you put in quantities! Here are two of them, although if you do a quick search you'll find lots more!
So I have my chosen pattern in mind and I have my colour repeat decided, so next I made a (rather small!) tension square. I made a couple of little squares to begin with just to see which hook size worked best with the yarn and settled on a 4.5 mm hook. Then I made a tension sample of 25 trebles and 7 rows.
I have 1.7 stitches per 1 cm and I want my blanket (without the border) to measure approx 140 cm (55 inches) wide. So 1.7 sts x 140cm = 238 stitches.
My stripey blanket pattern calls for a 24 stitch pattern repeat plus 2. So rather than 238 sts, I'll go for 240, plus 2 = 242sts.
Then I got cracking!!!!!
My chain stitch is quite tight and therefore gives a very tight foundation row, so I like to work a treble foundation stitch and I usually use a hook one size bigger too. This is a really good foundation stitch to learn and gives a lovely stretchy edge that fits in with the tension of the rest of the blanket.
Once I had my 242 foundation stitches made there was no stopping me and the stitches just seemed to fly off my hook!!! And believe me when I say that merino yarn is a joy to work with - an absolute JOY!!! I never want to use acrylic again but I don't think I have a choice. If anyone knows iof a good quality budget merino please let me know.
So, would you like to see some photos?? Thought so!
This is still a work in progress, so pop back again to see how I tackle the border when I get there.
And don't forget, if you decide to make your own, please link back to me as the designer - but more importantly, I'd love to see your version, so PLEASE SHARE!!
subtle and elegant color choices
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