cheapest non nasty acrylic yarn for granny squares?

[EarlyIntheMorning]

Bearing in mind how expensive yarn is and how much would be needed to make a blanket for a single bed, what's the cheapest yarn I could get away with for the end result to look good and have longevity?

Early, the one used for Woolly Hugs (at least for Little Hugs) is Stylecraft Special DK yarn.

I have now made 4 blankets that work out at about 4 foot by 5 foot - so not quite single bed size (I would think you'd need 4.5 foot by 6 foot at least).

I used about 8 x 100g of Stylecraft special which sells for £1.99 on the Deramores website. You would perhaps need 10 balls so about £20 worth of yarn.

There is a photo of my latest blanket on my profile. It is a circle-to-square pattern and I used join as you go rather than sewing them together. It's a brilliant method for a lazy trout like me

Yes, Stylecraft Special DK :)

£1.69 per ball at Wool Warehouse

NB. There are some very bright colours - avoid Jaffa, Bright Green, Bright Pink and Fiesta unless you want neon :)

Thank you everyone. Stylecraft Special DK seems the way to go . I should clarify that I haven't even learned how to crochet yet but my friend is teaching me and she has high expectations for me .

Thank you for the warning SoupDragon. I really really wanted a little bit of orange. I guess it would be okay to find a suitable orange from a different brand.

Thanks to Soupy's warning on another thread I'm going to make my niece a blanket for uni next year in black, white and jaffa - it will look like Nemo. My niece is driving my poor sister to despair with her wardrobe full of black and sludgy colours.

I saw a Nemo blanket on Ravelry. It looked fabulous :) I plan on making a Little Hug to use up the Jaffa I ordered in ignorance :o

Not sure what you meant by a Nemo blanket, Soupdragon I searched it on Ravelry and the only thing it came up with was a Sea blanket, which, incidentally, was created by a girl who used to live round the corner from us before she emigrated to Canada.

Quite an expensive pattern, though and knitted, not crocheted.

It was just orange, white and black like Nemo the clown fish.

Just a tip - if you're doing a blanket, just make one granny square and keep letting it get bigger and bigger, changing colour every row / every couple of rows. Loads of different squares to sew together at the end are a pain in the arse and a real slog.

I recommend either the Stylecraft Special dk, mentioned above, or the James C Brett, Top Value dk - both come in a really good range of colours, and are good to knit or crochet with.

Hobbycraft used to sell some wool called Bonus DK which was nice and soft and not too pricey. I think it was made by Sirdar. They had a good range of colours too. I knitted some into baby cardigans as I thought it was soft enough for that.

Peter I made a blanket by the continuous method you described - it was good in that there was no sewing up, but it seemed so so slow to do, as one round would take ages. I do a lot of knitting so have lots of oddments so these blankets are ideal for using them up.

Woolly sorry if it is a silly question but how do you join as you go? I always sew up using an oversewing stitch but it can show and look a bit untidy.

The sewing is very off putting and probably over ambitious. Maybe I should do a stripey one...

Monikar have a look at the Attic24 blog. She has a photo tutorial fir joining granny squares. It is the one I followed and I could kick myself for not doing it sooner as it is so easy. I do end up doing a (uk) double crochet in the chain space to join - I think Attic24 uses a slip stitch - but I am happier with my method.

Now if I could only get my head around crocheting over the loose ends after joining in a new colour...

Woolly thank you very much, I will have a look at that . I try and crochet over the loose ends when I join a new colour but it never looks as tidy as sewing them in afterwards.

I am also learning how to crochet at the moment and I'm planning on doing the Atic24 granny stripe. Thank you for the yarn recommendation. If I was to attempt a single bed size blanket, how many balls of yarn will I need to buy?

My crochet blankets are for babies and I tend to do about a yard square - this uses about 400-500g. I would think a single bed size would be at least double this size so if I were you then I would buy 1000g so that would be 10 balls of 100g.

Really monikar? That doesn't sound like the crazy amounts I thought in my head!

My not-quite-single-bed sized rainbow ripple took about 1.5 100g balls each of 7 colours. So, between 10 and 14 would probably be about right for single bed. I would estimate more than 10 though - I can't remember whether the Stripe uses more or less yarn than a Ripple.

Any photos Soup?

Um... here and here

It is what I call "sofa snuggle size" so is slightly less than 5'7" long.

You made that??? It's gorgeous! How long did it take you?