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?

How long it took me is kind of misleading - I started it on about 25/7/12 and finished it over a year later :o However, I didn't do any work on it from mid September '12 to mid July '13 The bulk of it was done between July and September last year with one colour repeat and the border done this year.

That's interesting. I get the urge to knit between September and December (I'm a knitter, not yet a crocheter), hardly ever during the summer.

MrsDeVere thank you for that tip and the shop recommendation. No pop up 10% off for me though!

Ah you have to get the bulk of your winter knitting done over the summer! Otherwise the snow catches you unawares.

Alternatively, shawl and sock knitting are very popular in the summer as it doesn't mean swathing yourself in Aran whilst the temperature is .. er, well - slightly more than 20

I naively took my knitting to Menorca thinking I would have masses of time to get lots of mittens done. I did have the time but boy I couldn't even touch the wool!!!

Well this is where going on holiday in the UK comes in handy :)

I knit all year round, but tend to do the crochet blankets in the winter, when they can act like a blanket over me while I work on them.

Thank you, I will try that when I'm ready to order my colours; So many to choose from! I think I might order a swatch card first.

I prefer small granny squares to a big continuous one as they are so portable, I can whip out my square , hook and a bit of yarn on my breaks at work or at swimming lessons.

I made a lot of my blanket in Antigua :o

Stylecraft does not feel nice in humid weather!

that is gorgeous soup dragon, do you have a a pattern?

It's just the Attic24 Neat Ripple with my own border.

I have made several blankets and a couple of bolster cushions using stylecraft dk, they looked and felt lovely when newly finished, but the yarn does not wear well, the cushions especially look very worn, fuzzy and bobbly just two months on.

From experience I think it is worthwhile paying a bit extra for cotton or wool yarn. I'm using the Rico creative cotton for my current projects which is pretty cheap. I bought from Wool Warehouse with a 10% discount code from simply crochet mag.

Hello
I would like to make a couple of recommendations, I'm not sure about crochet but for knitting I bought some yarn from Poundstretcher, it's called Glenmore premium acrylic, it's £2.50 for a 200g ball.
Also I just tried Cygnet which is quite nice, lovely colours too, especially the pink shades. These are on eBay.
I still haven't tried Stylecraft but Hayfield bonus is nice to knit with.

Soupdragon I just have to comment, your blanket is amazing.

I love crochet but find you have to be careful with colours and yarns or it really does end up looking cheap and 'granny' which is not what you want when you've just invested all those hours to it.

Soupdragon, could you possibly list the stylecraft colours you used? I ordered a whole load of colours from wool warehouse last month to start a bright rainbowish baby blanket, and when they arrived they were nothing like the colours on the screen had been! Some of them completely unusable, especially Jaffa!

20% off all stylecraft yarn on deramores until 6th October. That makes a Lucy pack £23 for 17 100g balls of special dk. Lush.

Soupdragon, could you possibly list the stylecraft colours you used?

Ah... I see you've fallen for the Jaffa ruse :o The orange is a Hayfield one which is slightly less traffic cone than the Jaffa! It took a lot of looking to find one that was the right orange and this one still isn't right - also you can feel where the orange is if you run your finger down the blanket with your eyes shut. It's not a nice as the Stylecraft.

Red - Matador
Yellow - Sunshine
Green - Green [snort]
Blue - Aster (I think)
Indigo - Violet (which seems a bit odd!)
Violet - Plum

The edging is in Cloud, White and Silver.

The purples at the end are a bit arbitrary and clearly not correct for a proper rainbow. They seemed to make the colour change from blue to red the best though.

Thank you Brass

I agree about things looking "cheap". I think my rainbow one does to a certain extent because it is clearly cheap acrylic even though it feels lovely. With 3 children one dog and a cat though, I was aiming for practical!

I studied Image 4 looks like cotton not acrylic and no doesn't look cheap. I've made a note of the colours, can feel the creative juices starting to flow.

I must be the only person on MN that loves Stylecraft Jaffa

I like Jaffa but it certainly wasn't the orange I was hoping for!

looks like cotton not acrylic and no doesn't look cheap.

In real life it looks just like the acrylic it was made from, there's no getting away from it. It's what I wanted to use for the blanket though so I am not at all disappointed :)