Stop the presses…the Simply Crochet Hook ‘N’ Learn blanket is finally complete! I can’t express how much I really enjoyed hooking this blanket. It was a real learning experience as several of the stitches I hadn’t used before and it was extremely satisfying to use up a lot of the odds and ends from the yarn stash. The finished blanket is now pride of place in my Crochet Nook under the stairs, beautifully showcasing 12 different crochet stitches.
Now firstly, the catherine wheel stitch was actually a surprisingly easy stitch considering the graphic and textured appearance achieved. However, the only downside to this particularly lovely stitch, is those ends! Just look at them! SO many!
The puff stitch was, again, a nice and easy one. I have hooked the puff stitch before so it was a good one to happily hook away whilst watching Netflix. Finally, the apache tears. Now these did cause me some minor issues but mainly due to my interpretation of the pattern or rather my misinterpretation. Essentially, I completely misunderstood when the colour change should happen and it looked all over the place. I kept thinking that maybe it was like the cable stitch, where it looked ropey for a while but then when I turned it over it was a beautiful textured piece. But, no such luck there, when I turned this one over on the first attempt, it was not a beautiful textured piece! I did get there in the end though and I think you’ll agree that it is a really unique stitch and was worth the extra frogging.
Onto the final countdown…the final three stitches. The wave stitch was another nice one to hook whilst watching your favourite show. You almost just had to just go through the motions – double crochet to half treble to treble to double treble and just follow the previous row for guidance to create the waves. The basketweave stitch was another like the cable stitch, it came together at the end and created a simple but effective textured stitch.
The bobble stitch is one that I had used before but the difference was the colour changes. As you can see from the above photo, the actual puffs are a different colour to the rest of the swatch. Even though it made it a little bit more complicated, I think it was worth the extra effort.
All that was left to do was to sew it all together and add a nice little edging. Embarrassingly, I’ll admit that the sewing up probably took as long as crocheting all the blocks. However, I think it has all worked out! I am very, very glad that all the blocks tessellated together correctly. I was a bit concerned about this stage of the process because I did use lots of different types of yarn from my stash, so the tension across the blocks probably wasn’t as consistent as the pattern intended. But, no matter, I have a finished Hook ‘N’ Learn blanket and I absolutely love it! Yes, it is a bit wobbly in places but you can’t beat a finished handmade project!
