Moorland Blanket CAL :: Part 1

Hello my lovelies!!!!!! I'm so sorry I've been away from the Attic for a few weeks, I've not been very well over Christmas and New Year and so spent way too much time either in bed or snuggled on the sofa trying to recover from this stinker of a cold that hit me hard. I'm just on the tail end of it now, and am feeling a little bit more like my usual happy, bouncy self again which is a relief I can tell you. I'll be writing some catch-up posts next week, but today we are here to celebrate the start of my Moorland Blanket Crochet-a-Long, yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to share the above photo with you - this was taken last week as we drove up over the Moorland in sub-zero temperatures, my oh my, it was sooooooo beautiful up there. The Winter Moorland is a gorgeous palette of muted and soft colours, more subdued than the Summer landscape but still very lovely indeed.

But now I want to take you back to late August and remind you of the inspiration behind my Moorland Blanket.................

.........ahhh, that's better!! Feel the warmth!!!!!!! This is my most favourite time to walk on the moors, with blue skies and warm sunshine, light winds and clear vistas. And the colours.....oh the colours of the Summer moorland are a complete delight!

I chose fifteen shades of Stylecraft Special DK to create my Moorland colour palette :

Top row, left to right ♥ Pistachio ♥ Sage ♥ Grape ♥ Wisteria ♥ Duck Egg ♥

Middle row, left to right ♥ Lime ♥ Meadow ♥ Mocha ♥ Violet ♥ Cloud Blue ♥

Bottom row, left to right ♥ Cyprus ♥ Khaki ♥ Walnut ♥ Plum ♥ Storm Blue ♥

You can find the Moorland Yarn Pack in my shop with Wool Warehouse :

{MOORLAND YARN PACK}

I designed a simple Neat Wave pattern for my Moorland Blanket to echo the view of the rolling landscape.

But aside from the actual Neat Wave pattern, I also decided to try and design a blanket where the colours of the stripes echo the landscape too. I wanted the blanket to feel like a journey, a visual stroll across the moors in Summer time. The bright greens of summer grasses and mosses, the earthy tones of stone paths and peaty soil, the vibrant swathes of purple heather blooming, and the gentle blues of a summer sky.

This is a deceptively simple idea, but it was much harder to accomplish in reality I can tell you! You can read more about my inspiration and design process in this post.

The Neat Wave pattern itself is pretty simple, using three different stitch heights to create the rise and fall of the waves. Working this pattern takes a little bit of practice and concentration, but there is only very simple counting required and the repetitive rhythm of it is very, very meditative and soothing.

I've created a full picture-heavy tutorial to help those of you who are new to crochet. The tutorial will enable you to make a small sample (shown above) so that you can work out your own tension and settle on a hook size which will work for you.

Towards the end of the tutorial, I've given guidelines about starting chains and blanket sizes - for the Moorland Blanket CAL I'm using one yarn pack to make a single bed size blanket measuring 120 x 170 cm. I've used a starting chain of 181 for this size (18 x 10, plus an extra 1)

If you've bought two yarn packs and are wishing to make a bigger double bed size blanket, I've given a couple of suggestions for different starting chains, and some information to help you work out the size you need.

Every Friday here on the main pages of my blog, I'll be giving you a CAL update which will give you the colour information for twenty stripes at a time. There will be 115 stripes in total, which will make a blanket measuring 170 cm.

I'll also give you the option of adding in an extra 15 stripes which will be spread throughout the blanket - this is for those of you who are making bigger blankets with two yarn packs. The extra stripes will make the blanket approximately 20 cm longer (190 cm). Because of the way the colours are worked, it wasn't possible to simply add the extra rows on at the end. I'll write them clearly in red - only add them if you have an extra yarn pack to accommodate them!! I hope this makes sense!!

All CAL posts will remain on my blog so you can dip into them whenever you need - please don't worry if you miss a week or fall behind with your hooky, you can go at your own pace. Here is a rundown of the CAL schedule :

Friday 6th January - part 1 - working a tension sample, choosing the right hook size, stripes 1-20.

Friday 13th January - Part 2 - stripes 21-40

Friday 20th January - Part 3 - stripes 41-60

Friday 27th January - Part 4 - stripes 61-80

Friday 3rd February - Part 5 - stripes 81 - 100

Friday 10th February - Part 6 - stripes 101 - 115

Friday 17th February - Catch up week (darn in those ends!!)

Friday 24th February - Part 7 - the edging and a grand Ta-dah!

A little word about the Moorland yarn colours - before you start, please make sure you are familiar with the yarn colours and names. There are six shades of greens in this blanket, so it can be easy to make mistakes, even if you think you know the colours. Snip some little bits of yarn and stick them to a sheet of paper with their names, or store your yarn balls with their names/labels attached.

NEAT WAVE PATTERN

Here is the colour info for Part 1 of the blanket :

Cypress (foundation chain, foundation rows 1& 2)
Lime (rows 1 & 2)
Khaki (rows 3 & 4)
Meadow (rows 5 & 6)
Pistachio (rows 7 & 8)
Mocha (rows 9 & 10)
Walnut (rows 11 & 12)
Lime (rows 13 & 14)
Meadow (rows 15 & 16)
Khaki (rows 17 & 18)
Lime (19 & 20)
Pistachio (rows 21 & 22)
Cypress (rows 23 & 24)
Walnut (rows 25 & 26)
Lime (rows 27 & 28)
Grape (rows 29 & 30)
Pistachio (rows 31 & 32)
Meadow (rows 33 & 34)

INSERT OPTIONAL STRIPE HERE - Lime (for double bed size blankets)

19. Khaki (rows 35 & 36)

20. Mocha (rows 37 & 38)

I really, really, really hope you enjoy the start of your Moorland journey - this first part is all about the greens, the summer grass and moss, with little peeps of earth and heather as you go. Have fun, and we'll catch up again next Friday....

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Links for more info :