The Evolution of a Rainbow Blanket

Blogging about my mini patchwork squares blanket last month made me realise that I never got round to properly photographing my rainbow blanket when I finished it a couple of years ago. I blogged about it being almost finished, and said I'd take photos of it finished "sometime soon" but, alas, never found the time and here we are two years later already.
 
I love my rainbow blanket, and really enjoyed making it so (as with the mini squares blanket last month) so I'm taking a look back at how it's developed over the years before having a "yay! finished blankets!" photo session.

 

In my teens I knitted a couple of blankets as gifts for my family, and also knitted a whole bunch of squares that never got used for anything. I rediscovered them in my 20s and began very slowly knitting more squares so I could finally turn them into a finished blanket. Or, rather, two blankets, because teen me (by accident? or by design??) had been knitting two different sizes of squares!

I finished the first blanket in 2013 (click to see pictures!), and in 2014 was busy knitting squares in assorted bright colours to add to the second blanket. All the squares were knitted in plain garter stitch, using double knit acrylic yarn and UK size 8 (4mm) knitting needle, casting on 30 stitches to make squares measuring approximately 14cm. 

At this point I had a whole bunch of dark grey squares in the mix (knitted with yarn left over from my sky blanket) and was thinking about putting the squares together in a block design similar to the one I was using for my mini squares blanket.
 

I wasn't totally happy with this layout, though, so I just focused on knitting squares from the yarn I already had and added in a few more colours I thought would blend in well.

In October that year I took out the darker squares and arranged the others in colour order and they just POPPED so the grey definitely had to go (I unravelled them and re-knitted them as mini squares for my patchwork blanket). 

By July 2015 I had 70 squares knitted, but the colour mix was looking a bit imbalanced.

I thought about just adding in some greens to balance out the "hot" reds and pinks, but decided to go for the full spectrum and cram in as many bright, happy colours as possible. So I bought a few more balls of yarn in zingy shades and continued slowly knitting more squares.
    

Frustratingly, when playing around with possible layouts for the blanket, I realised that a whole bunch of the squares were too big! (I guess I must have muddled up my knitting needles at some point?) I unravelled them all and started re-knitting them the correct size in the summer of 2015.

I spent the autumn of that year knitting a lot of blanket squares...

 

  ... and by November my stash of squares looked like this:

In December 2015 I finally sat down and planned the final layout. I'd been building up my rainbow spectrum stash without any real plan and was very pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to fit all the squares together; I just needed some more green!

 

I started stitching the outer sections of the blanket together...

... bought a final ball of bright green yarn, and began knitting green squares.
 

I finished knitting the very final square while watching Eurovision in May 2016 (I love Eurovision), then immediately started adding the remaining squares to the blanket.

I couldn't stop smiling while weaving the in the last few yarn ends; those colours just burst with happiness!

I wove in and trimmed the last of the yarn ends on May 25th 2016.

I've used the blanket a lot since then (I'm actually sitting on it right now as I type this) and it brings me joy on a daily basis. I hope I'll have a chance to take lots of snaps to capture that rainbow joy and properly show it off in another blog post sometime soon!

In the meantime... for more blanket-y goodness, follow the links to read about the making of my patchwork mini squares blanket, or my sky blanket.

February in Pictures: Beach Walks, Lunchtime Reading, and a Cosy Blanket

February might be the shortest month, but I squeezed a lot into it... including a mini photoshoot where Jo and I modelled my rainbow blanket as if it was a trendy blanket scarf, getting lots of funny looks from passers by in the process.

My DIY projects continue to keep me busy, and to make working from home a little chaotic as I'm surrounded by boxes at all times!

I decided to start blogging about the progress of my new flat (click here to read the first post) and was delighted with the positive feedback from everyone. Doing up this place is definitely going to be a marathon not a sprint so all cheerleading is very much appreciated (please ignore the mixed sports metaphors there). 

Most of the time it's not too bad juggling DIY and everything else, but sometimes it can be a bit frustrating. I had a bit of a pity party at the start of the month, feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't join in with an Instagram photo challenge because my home is such a mess and everything nice I own is packed up in boxes. I mean, talk about a first world problem, right?

After I snapped out of it I decided to have some fun and put together a DIY equipment flatlay - proving you don't need a beautiful space or lots of fancy stuff to get creative!

 

I love that photo and I also rather adore this snap of map-like paint layers uncovered while redecorating in the living room:

Here on my blog in February I shared three posts (one, two and three) filled with photos from a photowalk I went on last year. This photo isn't the best picture but it never fails to make me laugh - so many warning signs!

I also shared three fun felt fruit tutorials (apple and orange slices, strawberries and watermelon slices)...

 

... a free embroidery pattern to remind you to Never Stop Learning...

 

... and I blogged about the second wreath tutorial I've designed for The Village Haberdashery's blog. Unsurprisingly, February's wreath was Valentine's themed but as someone helpfully pointed out this wreath would also be great for Mother's Day. I think it would also be lovely for weddings or anniversary parties. You could also use the templates and tutorial to make embroidered felt hearts, which would make fab brooches or ornaments. 

By the way, how gorgeous are these industrial-look shelves in The Village Haberdashery's new shop?  I took so many photos when I visited to deliver the Valentine's wreath. Fabric heaven!

In the middle of the month I spent a freezing day in Bristol with some friends, peeling my gloves off to take a couple of quick photos then hastily putting them back on again. (It snowed. I had to go to Primark to buy a pair of fleece-lined leggings to wear over my tights. Brr!).

I continued to try to read more books, squeezing in some lunchtime reading and blogging about the books I read in January.

 

(You'll have to wait until the next "read more books" blog post to find out what I thought about The Miniaturist!)

I fell totally in love with my new bedlinen (bought from John Lewis in their January sale), which looks so great with my hand knitted rainbow blanket. This photo is pretty much a mood board for my home decorating plans: lots of white and clean lines but as a backdrop for all the colours. It's going to be a long while until my flat gets to the decorating stage but in the meantime a girl can a) dream and b) make Pinterest boards.

I also took so many walks on the beach in February and took so many photos along the way that I've started a new Instagram account for sharing all my pics. I'm loving exploring my new hometown, and it's proving rather fun having an Instagram account with a totally different vibe to my main one. Instead of craft and bright colours it's all beach views and soft greys and blues.

 

I might have started a second Instagram account but I've also been trying to enjoy analogue, offline pleasures as well. I've been doing some stitching (of course)...

 

... buying some lovely new stamps for my letters...

 

... and borrowing way more books from the library than I'm ever going to be able to read before they're due back (even with the magic of online renewals!).

 

I do love the internet, but it's wonderful to switch off the screens and spend some time with pens and paper and fabric and thread.

Want to keep up with what I'm up to day-to-day instead of just catching up once a month? I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me. You'll also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

My Happy Rainbow Blanket: Almost Finished!

Remember my rainbow blanket?

 

I bought the final ball of yarn last month and finally finished knitting the squares last week.

I had two "halves" of the blanket already knitted and sewn together but it was missing three rows of aqua and green.

So, I got to knitting the final green squares...

This is quite a hard shade to capture in photos! It's half way between a spring green and a neon green and it looks lovely and zing-y against the other colours in the blanket.

After many evenings spent knitting in front of the TV (I am not a fast knitter) all the squares were finished. Hurrah!

I laid them all out on the living room floor to plan the final arrangement of colours.

This has been a bit of a "make it up as you go along" project (earlier it was going to look like this, and before that it wasn't even originally intended to be a rainbow blanket!) so I'm especially pleased that it's all worked out well in the end.

Once I was happy with the layout of the squares, the final bit of sewing-up began! I added squares to each side of the blanket then joined the two sections together.

I've been sewing the loose yarn ends in gradually over the months I've worked on this blanket, but there are still lots of ends still to sew in!

 

It's not the most exciting task in the world but I actually find it quite meditative - sometimes a nice simple repetitive task is exactly what you need at the end of a long day. Put your feet up, pop the telly on and stitch stitch stitch...

 

I'm thrilled with how the colours in this blanket look together and can't stop myself from smiling whenever I work on it, or when I look at these colourful photos. Making stuff is always fun, but making something that fills your heart with joy? Just magical.

I'll be sure to take lots of snaps of the finished blanket to share with you guys sometime soon, and I'll also write about how I made the blanket (needle size, stitch, colours used, etc) so you'll be able to make your own happy rainbow blanket if you fancy one :)

Knitting, Travelling, Photographing, Mending and Spring Cleaning!

Yesterday I went to my local knitting shop (hurrah for local knitting shops) and bought the final ball of yarn for my happy rainbow blanket.

It's "grass green", one of the new colours Stylecraft introduced last year. I'd been looking everywhere for a nice bright, zingy green to add to my rainbow of colours so I was thrilled when Stylecraft added this to their range. Doesn't it look great with the other bright colours?

Things have been a little quiet here on the crafty front as I've been taking lots of trips and spending my evenings before planning lots of sightseeing and after putting my feet up and editing lots of photos.

I've got lots of photos to share from my trips to Leeds and York - and I'll blog about them sometime soon, I promise! I've also visited Bath (beautiful as always) and the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare (breezy!).

Our sweet kitty has been furious with me for being away so often, but he seems to have forgiven me now and is back to sleeping on my bed at night and getting into my business whenever possible.

Here's a snap of him from a few weeks back when he was "helping" me take some photos:

He also kindly kept me company on the sofa while I did some mending this weekend (he snoozed at one end of the sofa while I sat and stitched at the other: excellent teamwork!).

I've been meaning to mend this duvet cover for sooooo long, it's great to have the task finally ticked off my To Do list. I can't remember ever having sewn a patch on something before, and the hole I was mending was actually several small holes and one large tear... so I'd convinced myself that this was going to be a v tricky task and thus had been putting it off.

It turns out it wasn't actually tricky at all, hurrah, and I'm delighted with the finished result. I used scraps of my favourite Liberty print for the patches because why not have pretty patches, right?

Also on my To Do list at the moment: lots of spring cleaning! I'm doing lots of actual physical cleaning and tidying, but also sorting things like my digital files and my Etsy shop. 

To help me spring clean my shop, I've reduced the price of some listings that are due to expire in the next few days. All these pieces are now just £1 each (plus postage). Quick, go grab a bargain and treat yourself or a friend to a felt-y something...