Crochet Bertie Blanket Ta Dah!

It has become a tradition of mine to take a crochet project on holiday with us each year, you see, I am not very good at sitting still and doing nothing.  I do find relaxing is quite an art.

This year was no different, after accidentally coming across a lovely page on facebook called Little Doolally I knew I had I just HAD to create one of her gorgeously gorgeous blanket patterns.

So off I went to buy the Bertie blanket pattern which I found in her Etsy shop for just over £3, what a bargain! Then came the time to pick the yarn and colours ...... Amy, who runs this fab shop told us on her page that she loved Drops Paris, a lovely cotton yarn.  I love the look of cotton yarn with its stitch definition and after a lot of deliberation (making colour decisions isn't my strong point :-)) I chose:

Light Turquoise
Light Purple
Shocking Pink
Opal Green
Strong Yellow
Medium Pick
White

I have a real thing at the moment about bright colours set off against white so these colours seemed perfect.

The pattern supplied is for a baby blanket but I upped the scale of mine as I wanted to create a lap blanket so I started with around 200 (or 210, sorry can't remember) stitches to kick off.

 As the holiday progressed the blanket grew with lots of happy memories intertwined within it .... those memories include family fun and laughter, the sound of the sea lapping against the shore, drinking champers with Suzi Quatro on the flight home (I didn't realise it was her until we landed and yes I do crochet on flights lol) and my crochet hook being passed back to me on that same flight by Jamie Oliver's Mum who sat behind me along with Jamie and his family (a rather odd Easyjet flight indeed).

I went for a strong white edging to set off the colours even more and LOVE the finished result.  The blanket is quite heavy using the cotton yarn so if I did create one this large again I would possibly use a wool based yarn but I do adore the colours that Drops Paris sell, I am not sure you would get the vivid colours and texture you do with a wool based yarn.

This blanket really does remind me of summer holidays...... for instance the green reminds me of this Mojito

The vivid blue of the sky against the bright pink of the Oleander.

The sandy yellow reminds me of the beach and our summer awning.

And the blue also reminds me of our guard Hippo out in Mallorca :-)

The yarn comes in 50g balls and I bought roughly 2 of each colour and 7 white balls.  The pattern was super easy to follow with lots of info and photos to help you along the way.

PS I haven't been paid to write this blog, I just love sharing good products when I find them :-D

PPS If you love crochet as much as me you may like to join me over at my facebook page as the lovely Amy from Little Doolally is having a giveaway on my page in early December :-)

https://www.facebook.com/ScentedSweetpeas

Take care
Zoe
x