I Need Help From Stylecraft Gurus

[TheWoollybacksWife]

I will shortly be finishing my Woolly Hugs project and I want to make a baby blanket. My great-niece is expecting a baby boy in the autumn and I'm going to make her a couple of cardigans and some hats, but I'm also going to make her a blanket. How can I be a great-great aunt at under 50

The only problem is I'm not very good at colour combinations and don't get me started on trying to do random. I'm planning to make a granny stripe - the only thing I'm sure of is that alternate stripes will be white and I will be using shades of blue. I have most of a ball of Cloud Blue and about a third of a ball of Aster.

What other shades can I use? I've looked at the Attic24 blue pack (Cloud Blue, Denim, Turquoise and Petrol) and thought these work well together - but would they work with white?

Help me please!

I think everything works with white, as it does with black. I had a little bit of white in my log cabin blanket, if you remember and then navy, aster and sherbert. That, I thought worked very well. I would maybe not use too many shades or it might look a bit restless. But if you have a pack of shades of blue you can maybe use three shades of blue and white. You get quite a nice baby blanket out of 500 gr of yarn (assuming you use 2 balls of white). Mine took 10 balls, but that wa nearly a full single bed size.
I am now doing an alphabet blanket for my little granddaughter, her birthday is on 4th August, so I need to get a move on.

I made one recently, I used every colour there is except for pinks. It was very well received. Here's a photo of it.

Thank you both for replying.

Oma I ended up in my local wool shop this morning and bought some sherbet and denim to mix with the aster and cloud.

Two it was your lovely blanket that gave me the inspiration for this project. I have lots of different colours of Stylecraft and I'm tempted to make one similar to yours but this branch of the family has very old fashioned strict ideas on what colours are suitable for babies and may give me the humphy face.

Do you know what? Seeing it written down it looks so bonkers I'm going multicoloured and to hell with pastel blue brigade!

I have all the shades of the rainbow plus a couple of shades of blue, some bottle green, pastel green, grey and even some bright yellow and orange. This will be fun! if I can get past my inability to freestyle

Very good plan. Never be deterred by the opinions of other people. It will look fantastic. Should we meet up again soon?

You go TheWoollybacksWife!!! What's the point of making something look traditional? The whole point of making something yourself is that it looks unusual and like you can't get it anywhere!!

I think going with bolder colours will actually increase its longevity than a selection of more traditional "baby" colours.

I understand your fear of free styling. I've been song a blanket "freestyle" for the colours. It's nice but I'm doing blocks so that it's not the end of the world if I make a mistake. Twelve blocks in and there's only one I dont love and truth be told I realised in the middle of doing it!

Good luck!

I made an "Elmer" blanket last year for Woolly Hugs. Oh the angst involved in trying to make it look random

Two your blanket looks like you did 2 rows of white to 1 row of colour. Is that correct? Would you mind posting rough dimensions? Otherwise I'll make a starting chain and just stop when it looks big enough

TheWoollybacksWife, the blanket ended up roughly 70cm by 90cm and I'm sorry I cannot remember exactly how many chains I started with, but if you just chain until you reach a bit less than 70cm, that will allow for the border later. Be prepared to do 2 or three rows and have to undo and start all over again if too short or long.

What Hoogally said about the colours is absolutely right, specially with Stylecraft. They have some very dull and lacklustre colours but you can lift them up by combining them with some of their most vibrant ones. They also have some I'd consider garish, like jaffa; I'd stay clear from those.

I followed the Attic24 granny stripe blanket pattern and yes, I did 2 rows of white and then one of colour. I almost managed not to repeat colours, I would have if I had been able to use pink!

Bit of a latecomer to this thread but you could always buy the 'Attic 24 pack' which is all the colours. Decadent perhaps but I've made a granny square blanket, ripple blanket and Elmer blanket (Little Tin Bird)....and with the ripple I literally copied hers as it was one of my first major projects. I've since got a bit better with colour but those guys really have it!

Available on wool warehouse, masons etc.

Another latecomer, but Lucy did a brilliant post on Attic 24 about colours and how she tries the out. She puts small balls of colour together to see how they go. She also showed this again in her bunting post.

Resurrecting my thread to show my finished blanket.

That is lovely!

That is lovely!

Gorgeous.

Thank you

I just hope my great niece likes it.

Lovely :)

That's lovely . I found attic24 only recently thanks to a thread on MN. I might have bought a load of wool and I might be teaching myself the raindrop pattern and I might be making a cushion. I chose colours that were in my garden, so random green followed by random colour, then random green etc.

I have a real problem with random. I like random, but can't do random, so what I do is I have a random number generator (mine are actually dice) on my phone and assign each colour a number. For some hats I made for the kids I also randomly did the number of rows per colour. It was really fun and turned out really well. I may have cheated a bit

Lovely colours Norah.

I think I was on the "I can't do random" thread with you . This blanket was my attempt at random - I used 18 colours plus white and did two repeats of each colour - but the angst involved in choosing the right colour was very stressful. Someone on that thread mentioned the biscuits and jam random colour generator and I think I might use that next time I try random

Yes! There is random and then there is random. I know you know it's one of the reasons I thought I'd do colour alternating with a green. I mean orange right next to pink? but random green, orange, green, pink is easier to cope with..

I tend to do "planned random" if I don't want a pattern. So, pick a colour at random but if it is too clashing to too similar to the previous one, pick again. I also do this when laying out a blanket of squares - no pattern to the colours but arranged so as to look random and with a balance to how the colours go.