Bargain Bag Baby Blankets

It has been a miserable wet long weekend. That is the down side, but the up side is that this is perfect crochet weather. I have been working on a number of things and have a backlog of unfinished projects. Numerous afghans that seemed such a great idea at the time, until I got bored or summer arrived. One of my goals is to try and reduce the number of half finished afghans lurking in the cupboard as well as use up some of that yarn that was such a bargain at the end of last season.

One such bargain was a huge bag of chunky baby yarn in yellow, lavender and blue. Seems that the number of baby girls out numbered the boys as there was no pink remaining. At 50cents a ball for top quality yarn I couldn't resist and sneakily brought into the house a bag of  15 balls - 2 aqua, 9 lemon and 4 lavender. My primal instincts of hunter gatherer had been stirred. Was never sure what I was going to do with the stuff  but reasoned with myself that the reason I had so many half finished rugs in the cupboard was that my intentions were too big!  That is, if they had been planned to be half the size then they would have been finished ages ago. (And the yarn was so deliciously soft and snugly).

Having always wanted to try a few of the more challenging styles of crochet, I figured I would give it a go. This included entrelac, tunisian and the waffle reversible patterns. So here are my creations which have now been passed to a few young mums with bubs on the way. The trick is that the colours are gender neutral and did turn out quite pretty.

Baby blanket Number 1 
 This was my first serious attempt at tunisian and I worked it on one of those bamboo hooks with the nylon extensions that was also on the bargain table. As I had an uneven aqua/ lavender/ lemon ratio in my bargain bag I worked this to use up the aqua.

This one turned out really pretty, and the texture of the blanket scrumptious. Lovely furrows of snugly colourful goodness!



Baby Blanket number 2- checkerboard.

My confidence with tunisian was improving so I embarked on some entrelac. I must say, this nearly did my head in. Logically to build up blocks from the corners messed with my mind and the habit of crocheting in rows. Once I had the knack of it, I really enjoyed the pattern.

 



This was an adaption of an entrelac pattern. Because the yarn was so chunky I worked it in trebles (USA dc) with a size 8 tunisian hook. I really like the simplicity of the design and it gives a nice firm fabric that little fingers wont get caught up in. Now lavender and lemon checker board may not be every ones cup of tea, but I can honestly say that I do like this colour mix.

The entralac does need to be finished with a boarder edge as some of my checkers were a bit wonky.




Baby Blanket number 3- reversible waffle


This was constructed using a simple V stitch on a base of 60 ch. The reverse occurs as you use one colour for all the even rows, and the second for all the odd rows, This is quite a thick fabric with a nice drape as I used a large hook

Row 1, using Colour A : 2ch, * miss one st, into next st (1tr 1ch 1tr) miss 1 st, 1dc next st* across

Row 2, using colour B: 2ch * 1dc into ch sp, insert hook horizontally under dc of prev row and work (1tr 1ch 1tr)* across. At the end of the row insert your hook under the 1st st at the beginning of the row.


If I did this one again I would use a lighter yarn and choose colours with a stronger contrast. This is quite a heavy blanket and would be suitable for a baby planning an antarctic expedition! I haven't given this one away yet as it is not really suitable for the Queensland born babies I know.

So 14+ balls were used and I have about half a ball of lemon left. I also feel much more proficient at tunison, and ended up with a nice stock of baby blankets for a mere $7.50 AUS!
Thanks for looking.