Please critique my wool choice - stylecraft dk colours for baby blanket

[Suddengeekgirl]

I'm going to make a baby blanket for some good friends who are expecting their first.

I'm thinking of doing a ripple (attic24 pattern) of mostly cream with red, yellow, blue and green stripes. Probably 2 cream, 1 colour: repeat to end.

What do you think?

I have itchy trigger fingers for ordering wool!

sillylass - I did 140 foundation chain for a the last ripple baby blanket I did.
Attic24 does Ta-dah posts about her finished blankets and often includes the size of the foundation chain, no of rows and finished dimensions. example here
I think I guess-timated my 140 chain from her dimensions iyswim.

If you're doing straight stripe then I think just chain until it looks the right length. I think the ripple foundation needs to be longer because it ends up wiggly.

Or you could be really professional and make a sample and measure that to calculate lengths more precisely totally too lazy for this

HTH :)

whoknows - love your granny stripe! :) Are those the attic24 colour pack colours? Looks great!

Thank you. I messed up by not reading the intructions properly, it's supposed to be two rows of each colour to give a more solid stripe but I didn't realised till I was about 10 rows in (a is about 6' long) so I wasn't going to unpick it.

I did it with foundation treble crochet rather than a chain IIRC (it was about 18 months ago, it keeps getting put aside for smaller, more portable projects).

pookbob I love your blanket! I would be so proud to have made that! How did you do the edging? Especially on the wavy edges?

RockinghorseShit - thank you, that's really kind!

Attic 24 explains on her blog how to do an extra row on the bumpy edge to make it straight... I'll try and find it for you.

The ripple in the photo is single bed size and took about a month. The one I'm doing now is king size. I may finish sometime in the next ten years!

1. I make sure I begin and end my blanket rows in the same colour (in this case red). The first stage of the edging then, is to make a row of trebles (in red) down each side of the blanket. I like to work out of the actual stitches/chains of each end stitch, as opposed to working round "the post" of each each end stitch if that makes sense. It's harder to do, but I personally think it gives a neater finish. I work 2 trebles into the end stitch of every row.

1. The next row is the row that will "fill in" and make the rippled edge straight (in this case turquoise). I begin at the bottom right corner of the blanket and work up the right hand side (I did Half Trebles for this row). When I get to the top right corner, I work 2 htr's, chain 2, 2 htr's to turn the corner.

Now working across the top of the blanket edge (in the picture above, from right to left), the following sequence of stitches ::

dc (twice) htr (twice) tr (four times) htr (twice) dc (six times) repeat between **.

At the end of the row, you turn the corner in the same way as you did before by working 2 htr's, chain-2, 2 htr's. Then carry on down the left side of the blanket with htr's. The bottom filling in of the ripple is slightly harder as it's worked into the foundation chain. But it's the same principle as the top :: basically you work 6 dc's to take you over the mountain, then 2 htr's to go down the sides of the valley, 4 tr's to fill in the bottom of the valley, 2 htr's to go up the sides, then back to 6 dc's to go over the mountain again.

So after all that, you should have your blanket with straight edges, and two rows of edging.

attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2012/12/interlocking-ripple-ta-dah.html

Wool arrived!

The colours are great! thank you all for your help! The saffron is not quite what I wa expecting, although it is very much like an egg yolk colour (as someone said up thread). I think if I was doing bigger stripes it would be too much maybe but for my thin stripes I think it'll be prefect!

Now trying to get the FC cracked.

also for anyone who was listening to me say chain 140 I meant 143 - need to add 3 for turning for anyone I've mislead!

Thankyou pookbob! I will give that a try.
I cant imagine making a kingsize one!! Ive got 2 baby ones I want to make, and then I want to make one for my dd's bed, should keep me going for a few years lol.

Ive ordered my wool, similar colours to yours suddengeekgirl, cream, bluebell, lipstick, meadow and saffron. Can't wait to get them!

143 thanks for posting that, I was just going to blindly copy you!

rockinghorse - phew! Glad you've not been cursing me yet! :)

Here's my colours.

they are fab, yes the yellow does look bright, but it will only be thin stripes of it i'm sure it will look really good, am looking forward to seeing your updates! Get making your chain!

I know its a bit late for you suddengeekgirl, but I've just seen a fabulous ripple on Little tin bird's website. Go to the home page and scroll down. Might be worth a look for future ripples!

www.littletinbird.co.uk/

That is lovely! :)
But I have control issues and like a repeating pattern. Random colour selection makes me twitchy!

Good for you sudden geek, I wish I was that disciplined! Please come back and post a piccie when it's done. I am new to chrochet, just finishing my first granny stripe baby blanket and have developed serious blanket fettish!

Have you had chance to make a start yet sudden?
My wool came this morning and I couldn't wait to get started, so when dd had a sleep I cracked on with it, and Ive done 4 rows, am very pleased with it, apart from the ends which don't look quite right, think I might have gone a bit wonky somewhere, but surely that will add to the charm?? !
pie that little tin bird blog is lovely, I looked at all the blankets she has made for ages!

I managed to get the FC and first row done yesterday when dd was at playgroup. I was pretty chuffed that I manage that in one go and that I didn't swear once! was a very different story last time!

I was knackered yesterday and wanted to watch Game of Thrones so didn't last night. Dd is back at playgroup tomorrow so hoping to wizz through my jobs list and then et hooking!

I remember from my first ripple that the ends weren't right to start with, can't remember why exactly but I would re rad the attic 24 tutorial closely as that sorted mine out.
Once I put a border on it you could to see the first 8ish rows were iffy.

Can I suggest you look up very pink knits chrochet for knitters ripple blanket tutorial on you tube? It makes it really clear.

Bollocks!

I think my tension is too loose

Last time I used the same yarn, and a 4mm hook and was fine. This time it's just loose! It's a different 4mm hook, but otherwise nothing is different.

I'm going to finish this stretch of cream and then try with a smaller hook to compare tension.

Arse-badgers!

Scratch that. I've frogged it. :(

I wasn't happy with it, so smaller hook it is. Think I'm going to get crampy hands though. If I switch to a different 3mm hook part way through would it matter? I'm thinking of getting one of the ones with a plasticy/ rubber grip.
Any thoughts?

Phew!

3.5mm hook seems to have sorted it. :)
Tension is tighter but not too tight. A much nicer feel, and I've caught up to where I was before I frogged it.

Yes to the rubber grip hooks, I just changed to the 4mm Easy Grip one (from Hobbycraft) and it is far easier on my hand and arm (I had tennis elbow last year in my hook arm and still get odd twinges).

whoknows did switching hook affect your tension?
Or have I just got looser with time/ practice?

Ah, interesting question. Yes and no!

The grippier hook allows me to crochet a lot faster than a normal one. That does tend to make the tension looser, so I have to reign it in a bit. I've done the last 20 rows or so of my blanket (above) with it and there does not seem to be any noticeable difference. So I think speed is the determining factor for me, not the actual hook.