Since about the Spring I have been working on my Vintage Patch Blanket and I finished it a couple of months ago. I have written up the pattern and the process which I would love to share with you!
So lets start at the beginning. I've always loved making blankets, it was the first thing I ever crocheted (ahem) about thirty years ago, and have made many more over the subsequent thirty years. At one point it was the only thing I wanted to crochet, everyone had one, if there was a baby being born in a ten mile radius, they had one too! I did soon progress away into making other stuff but I do like to have a blanket project always bubbling away in the background
So with this one, I decided I wanted to use some of the lovely vintage colours in the Stylecraft Special DK range and also, I thought I would use the opportunity to try some new things. Believe it or not, there are always new things to try with crochet....
Planning - I always blag a patch blanket, it is a great no fuss approach with very little thinking involved but you can lose track of your colour combinations and are guaranteed to have a few duplicate patches. So the plan was to make all the first rounds, then the seconds and so on.
Look at all those scrummy rounds!!!
When you have finished each round you sort them out into groups which you assign to the second colour, and so on with he next round. I had read from a few other bloggers that this was a quick and easy way of working up a blanket fast. It really did seem quicker to do it this way and was fun to plan for once!
The Design - I like the look of the circle in a square, having never really made this before, wanted to perfect a patch design for this. After a few protoypes and a bit of frogging I worked up a patch pattern I was happy with!
Join as you go - Which is basically joining the patches at the same time as crocheting the last round. I have used this method before and it is my favourite. I love seeing all your hardwork coming together and I don't even mind sewing in ends!
First things first, we need yarn and I used my trusty 'go to' yarn of Stylecraft Special DK. As mentioned they have some beautiful vintage shades in their range and wanted to combine these, so the yarns I used were :-
1 ball of each: -
Pale Rose
Parma Violet
Duck Egg
Pistachio
Mustard
Pomegranate
Sage
Violet
Storm Blue
3 balls of: -
Buttermilk (for the joining round and edging)
Next we need a pattern for the circle in the square patch which is as follows: -
(special stitches used:-
begpf - beginning puff stitch using 2 ch and 3 tr.
pf - puff stitch using 4 tr. See my
stitch guide for futher information on how to work a puff stitch and other stitch definitions)
Using a 4.5mm hook, make a magic ring
Round 1 - 4 ch, 15 dtr into ring, join with a sl st in 4th ch of 4 ch and fasten off (16sts)
Round 2 - join yarn in any sp between dtr's of previous round, work begpf in same space, 1 ch, *pf in next sp, 1 ch*, repeat from * to * to end joining with a sl st in top of first begpf (16 sts)
Fasten off yarn
Round 3 - join yarn in any sp between any pf st of previous round, 3ch (counts as tr), *2 tr into top of next pf st, 1 tr into next sp between pf sts*, repeat from * to * to end joining with a sl st into the 3rd ch of the starting 3 ch, (48 sts)
Fasten off yarn
Round 4 - join yarn in top of any tr st from previous round, work begpf into same st, *1 ch, skip 1 tr, pf into next st, repeat from * to * to end joining with a sl st into the the top of the begpf st (24 sts)
Fasten off yarn
Round 5 - join yarn in between any pf st from previous round, work 4 ch (counts as a dtr), dtr, 2ch, 2dtr into same st (corner made), *1 dtr and 2 tr into next sp, 3 tr into next 3 sps, 2 tr and 1 dtr into next sp, 2 dtr, 2 ch, 2 dtr into next sp*, repeat from * to * to end omitting last corner (56 sts)
Fasten off yarn
This completed the first patch! The blanket I made was 11 by 9 patches, so we will need to make another 98 patches. Using the planning method they worked up in no time, or so it felt, as you concentrated on each round at a time
Because of the circle in the square method, these patches will need blocking just to establish the square shape. I wet blocked mine, using my little homemade blocker!
This is just a piece of polystyrene, wrapped in duct tape and the patches held in place with kebab skewers!
So after blocking, your patches should look like this
Next we need to join the patches. To do this we are going to work a 6th round on the square and this will be in the same colour for all rounds, for which I choose Buttermilk.
For the first patch: -
Round 6 (non joining) - join yarn in the 2 ch sp of any corner of round 5, work 3 ch (counts as a tr), tr, 2ch, 2tr into same sp (corner made), *3 tr into next sp, 3 tr into next 5 sps, 2tr, 2ch, 2tr into next sp*, repeat from * to * to end omitting last corner (88 sts)
Fasten off yarn
Now when we make the 6th round on the next patch (patch B) we will be joining it to the first patch (patch A). So on patch B work the pattern the same until you get to the first corner. After making the first two tr in the corner, make 1 ch, then insert the hook into a corner sp of patch A
Make another chain and then complete the corner on patch B.
Begin working the second side of patch B, insert the hook and make a chain in the sp between the corner and first set of tr of patch A.
Work 3 tr in next sp of patch B, insert hook in next sp of patch A and make ch and so on, until you get to the next corner.
You will make the last join in the corner sp.
Finish the round and you should have 2 patches joined on one side, corner sp to corner sp.
Work the subsequent patches until you have joined a whole row of patches, joined on one side. For the second row, you will join the first patch with the same method but when you get to the second patch you will need to join 2 sides. Just work the same method, ensuring you carry it round to the second corner.
In the corner sp you will need to make sure it is joined to all adjoining corner sps
So once joining is complete (and ends sewn in) we move onto the border and for this I wanted to continue the granny theme, so worked a really simple boarder to finish. Firstly 2 rows of granny (3 tr), working 2 tr, 2ch and 2 tr into the corner. The last row worked 3 tr into the middle st of each 3 tr group, 1 ch and then join a sl st in the space between the 3 trs of the previous round
And there we have it! All finished and I am really happy with the result.
Another enjoyable blanket journey, now onto the next one!
*UPDATE OCTOBER 2019*
Since posting the above I have since made another Vintage Patch Blanket, with a different colour pallette, click
here for the details!
Happy Hooking
Kelly@lovedotty
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