Crocheting a blanket - tips for a beginner and best pattern/stitch to use?

[flubba]

Hello lovely crafters. I'm new to crocheting and have (finally!) mastered a granny square which looks lovely (having made a few dodgy ones before now!). I've also made a small bag and some booties, so can do a few different stitches, and am planning on starting a smallish blanket (in three or four colours - or shades of blue to be exact).

Would you advise me to go for a granny-square based one, or a ripple one or (and my preference I think) a a granny stripe one?

And do you know which would use the least amount of wool? I started out with acrylic wool (cheapy, cheapy!) but have used a couple of balls of things like debbie bliss cashmerino DK / rowan something or another, having made squares for the Woolly Hugs blankets, so now realise how lovely this kind of wool is, and would love to do a blanket with it but it's soooo £££, and I don't have £££

Thank you.

Ps, you can make pattern by substituting ch1 sk next st for a htc at regular intervals

Nope. Not got that. Have read it a few times but with three little people clambering on me too, can't understand it but will look again later with deep concentration (I've got a post-grad degree FFS! :o

FGS don't get frogging and dogging mixed up...

Count how many stitches there are per row.

Take away 4 - the first and last 2 of each row.

Divide into small equal groups eg 4 ( I'm doing a cellular like this at the moment )

Instead of the first stitch of each group, make a chain.

Work the next stitch as if you'd stitched instead of chained, leaving a hole.

Row 1: Skip, 3 htc

Row 2: as row 1
Row 3: 2 htc, sk, htc
Row 4: as row 3

It should look a bit like :

.lll.lll.lll.lll
lll.lll.lll.lll.
ll.lll.lll.lll.l
l.lll.lll.lll.ll

With the spaces travelling diagonally. I plan to do a 8 rows of pattern, 8 rows plain, then repeat till i run out of yarn!

Ooh Pidj, I bow to your brilliance >>and slink away hanging my thick head in shame

Nothing would surprise me any more...

"i dogged my knitting" would be a hell of a euphemism

purplepidjin i noticed your 3d flower square.please please could you tell me where you got the pattern...ive been searching for one for a while.
pretty please

Do you have a QD store anywhere near you? They had some rather posh branded yarn at good price last week.

Erm... Somewhere on Ravelry i expect. It's a rose for Ailidh if that narrows it down! I'll have a hunt in a mo and see if i can spot it again

sunshinescreations.vintagethreads.com/2011/08/free-irish-rose-pattern.html

Found it! I skipped lots of rows so it came up at the requisite 6" and made the last row solid trebles to it's easier to hook together :)

aww thank you.ive just had a quick go at starting off and ended with a very tight (impossible to get hook through) circle.is it american terms?
i only learnt about 6 months ago so maybe a few more attempts needed.
sorry for highjacking thread

Yes, it's in American. Chain 8, slip stitch to join. 16 doubles in the hole in the middle (i find this hard, try and position your wool hand to hold the gap open!) then slip stitch to join.

Then it's easy.

Then you have to sl st into the right place, which is tricksy. Then it's easy again :o

right,had another go and went into stitch not hole.....

what is chain 5 space?

The loop you made in the previous round. A bit like the hole you just crocheted into :)

oh god this is gonna try some patience lol

think ive managed the ring bit,had to push the stitches round to fit them all in without overlapping them iykwim

Yep, that's right. Tbh i think you only need 6ch for the circle, but I've got the hang of placing them and like it nice and tight

im confused on next step.think its the abreiviations.gonna come back later and write it out in english terms.
im ok till i get to sc(dc)in next around.. around?
ive got ds pestering me to look at his tractor magazines with him...

I think it means just carry on repeating what you've done. So Ch5, miss one stitch, SC in the next... ch5, miss one stitch, SC in the next... all the way around your circle.

Chain 8 form ring
ch 1, 16 dc in ring slst into first dc

#chain 5, skip 1 dc of previous round, dc in nxt# around, slst into the first ch5sp. (8 ch5sp)

ch 1, #dc, 5tc, dc in ch5sp# in each ch5sp (8 petals), slst into the first dc

ch1 slst around the first post on the first round ch 1, sc around the same post

#ch 5, dc around the next post# around, slst into top of first sd, slst into the first ch5sp. (8 ch5sp)

repeat round 3 except petals made with a #dc, 7tc, dc in each ch5sp#

repeat round 4 except go around the post of round 4

repeat round 3 except petals made with a #dc, 9tc, dc# in ch each ch5sp

center flower done - do not cut, slst to the center tc of the next petal

#ch 5, dc in 3rd tc of next petal , ch 5, dc in the 7th tc of same petal as last dc, ch5 dc in centre tc of next petal# repeat around ending with a ch 2 then tc in the first dc

chain 1 dc in the last ch5sp made of previous round, ch 5, dc in next ch5sp, ch 3, #shell (3tc ch1 3tc) in nxt ch5sp (corner made), ch 3, dc in next ch5sp, ch 5, dc in nxt ch5sp, ch 3# around ending with a shell in last corner omitting rest of repeat

I finished it!! Hurrahhhh! Linky here if you want to be nosey (but only if your eyesight is poor and doesn't spot all the mistakes :))