Cheap & Cheerful Winners

Our Cheap & Cheerful Challenge has finished!

What a joy to see what these ladies came up with, to show that even some of the cheapest yarns around CAN be used to produce a beautiful blanket.  

Here's the info on the background of Cheap & Cheerful, and my own contribution

and these were the three winners:

Helen's snowflake blanket

Helen chose to work with Chick, the very cheap supermarket acrylic that I also chose, in two blues, grey and white.  Upon finishing the blue and grey motifs, she realised that gaps between these were too large for her liking and  - given the restricted colour choices of Chick - came up with the plan to dye some her acrylic yarn (easier said than done!!).  Google and YouTube came to her aid and she added the brownish motif with white center - and it was as if the blanket was designed to look like that.

I love the unusual colour combination and the handdyed effect on the brown.  Plus the snowflakes brighten everything up.

A beautiful blanket and clever solution.

Brilliant Mommy's stripey C2C

Everybody's seen the Corner to Corner blanket, and many have been making it, right? There have been some beautiful variations, but you haven't seen it all until Helene's came along.

Three colourways of variegated Pullskein scream at each other...until you work it together, alternating after each row. Then it absolutely work, and blend in, the one with the next, into a harmonious, pastel rainbow.

These colours had Ons Hekel swooning.

Lara's chevron

Lara used the same almost shock tactic with her chevron blanket.  Who would put red and pink together with ...brownish and greyish? And yet the colours and stitch patterns mellow together, making the photo jump out from the rest.  

See what can be done?

There's no reason to think you can't make a beautiful item because you don't have great yarn.  Sure, working with Vinnis, I Love Yarn, Malabrigo, Rowan makes it a lot easier, but you can also get by with what you can find at the local co-op or supermarket.

I was so happy to see these three and the other entries.  And all 20 will make a difference as part of the Make A Difference charity, to be distributed come Winter 2016.

Well done ladies, be proud!  And enjoy your gifts packs :-)

(Thank you to Yarn in a Barn, Dalena White of Cape Wools SA, Brilliant Mommy for sponsoring some prices, as well as yarn donors!)

Done! A Cheap & Cheerful Blanket

At last I'm finished with a blanket that shouldn't have taken me more than a few days!

(But alas, I don't have the attention span).

A couple of months ago I launched a Cheap & Cheerful Challenge on my FB group and explained a bit more in this post.

Basically, it boiled down to showing that you can use dirt cheap acrylic yarn, but still hook something pretty; that cheap yarn doesn't have to equate to shrill, ugly colour combinations.  This challenge was not about the quality of the yarn, but about using the cheap supermarket variety, or worst case - that only yarn which is available to you.

So off I skipped to my local Checkers where they just unpacked the winter's load of Chick yarn.   This is typically the colour ranges for this cheapie, a 100g DK @ R20 (roughly £1, €1.43 or $1.58 today. Toldya it was cheap).

Stop street red or maroon?
(No, this is not marsala)

Dusky pink or sugary baby pink (this is a hot favourite at church bazaars)

Blues: cobalt, denimish, baby

Also available were brilliant white, pitch black, lemony yellow, light minty green, emerald and primary green, and some variegated combinations of the above.  And grey. 

I took the grey (let's be fancy and call it silvery grey), plus denim(ish) blue, a ball of emerald, plus the blue, emerald and something else variegated.  The variegated was dismissed to the donation bag after 2 or 3 rows of trying it out, and with it went the emerald.  So that left me with the silver-grey and denim, which suited me well, as I was after a simple look, simple colours, and something suitable or a man (the idea was to donate these blankets to the Maak 'n Verskil group who will distribute to various charities again).

Starting out my C&C, trusty Prym nr 4.5 to get it done swiftly. 

I decided to wing it, aiming for a basic stripey blanket that I made up as I went along. One silver-grey between blues became two, became four and so on, until I'd reach a midway point and reverse back.  

Starting out and it's looking fine. 

Oh wait, here:
*dragging photo from bottom of post*

There's the pattern repeat - add another 8 of silver-grey, and then three of 16 before I turned back

As this was a simple blanket to hook, I could easily tag it along and it was particularly useful during cold road trips!

A pit stop at a local favourite pizza place in the mountain.

It was also useful during cold nights in front of the tv! 

Tommie cat also took a liking to it

And then, after taking on and finishing numerous other  projects, it was done.  Even so, it took me another bloody week to just sit down and get to the ends!

 I didn't make it too big, only suitable for a lap blanket (useful for wheelchair users or to use while sitting), or then for a baby.

This photo might be upside down.
But
It's fine.  The blanket measures 105 x 118 cm.

Done!

A manly grey and blue granny stripe.

I haven't worked with Chick ever, before this challenge, but have used other acrylics numerous times. Truth be told - it wasn't that bad to work with this yarn, in the sense that it produces a neat, tight stitch and it didn't split (which is a common occurence with the nicest cotton yarns...  :-( and I could live with the squeak as I knew it was coming.

That said - I won't work with it again. Not for any of the above reasons...but that's a story for another day ;-)

But here'a a useful blanket that someone who needs it can use, and it won't hurt your eyes.  And that was the purpose of the exercise.

Next post: some of the blankets that came in .