At last, a Summer Throw Completed

At last, at last, a final post about the Summer Throw, that has actually been completed so long ago and is in use on the bed, even as a winter throw, but oh, the shame...because there was still more than a few ffffrafels* to work away...

But luckily I have a wonderful aunt, who came to visit, and she loves helping out with predicaments like these, and she Sat Down and Worked All The Ends Away.

I have shown most of the blanket before, but here's some more :-)

Sometimes it's folded on my trousseau kist, and Chloe Cat** wil curl himself up on the softness.

Most often it lies in a crumpled pile on the bed, after one or both of the boys came through our room

I've long stopped trying to straighten it.

It's just easier leaving it on a friendly, crumpled heap.

...because this lasts only a few second for the purpose of this photo.

...then I fold it back to start folding laundry, and the boys come in, and start jumping/playing...and off we go again :-)

Here's some of the history, since this throw has been coming a loooong time:

First, I did it the proper way and made a mock-up, a trial version, to get the colour patterns right. 

Then, over some months, I hooked furiously, then let it lie, then planned a house, then moved across the country, hooking in between, and at some stage when it was begin enough, started using it, with fffrafels all over the place and no edge.

Here I explained my colour placement.

And now it's done, with unedited photos (I forgot) at various light levels and what not, but at least it's on the bed.

The pattern was the Sorbet & Lace Square in the Ideas Crochet magazine available on Zinio.

The yarn was the lovely 10 ply Colours of Grace Magdalene, sadly discontinued, but soon to be followed with something new...

I think I used a 4.5 hook...but there might have been a 4 and 5 appearing sporadically...

The edge - Edge nr 22 from Around the Corner - Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman

 *fffrafels = those ends.  Or where you joined yarn.  Anything that needs to be worked away. "Frays", in Afrikaans it's "rafels",, but then one becomes a bit bit agitated and adjectives are added...

***Chloe Cat = Chloe is actually a male, but when he arrived at the mine where he worked as a Mouse Catcher, it was thought that he was a she.  Which he wasn't.  When the mine closed, all the cats had to be re-homed, and my resident geologist chose Chloe, whom then flew 1500 km to his new home, and might forever still be address as "she", even thought Chloe O'Reilly is "he".

My non-random placement of randomly placed squares

I am (now really) nearing the end of the Summer Throw aka Projek Bohemia V.2

There goes Tommie Cat

I was checking it out for size, out  on the floor and over the bed, and decided that the hooking will Stop Just Right Here, and posted about it on Ons Hekel, when my friend Hilda said I Must Please blog about my seemingly non-random square placement (I explained my line of thinking to her previously and she totally got it when she saw the photo).

(The size is right - the left and right rows hang over the sides of a Q-sized bed).

Now first - I have a Gemini mind.  

Left and right.

Mad colourful and monotonechrome.

Cool and warm.

Noise and quiet.

Order and chaos.

And so forth.

You should see my whole brain profile...it's almost square. Not really dominated by any one quadrant.

See?

So where I wanted to make a blazing technifullcolour blanket, it also had to be ordered.  I can never get random placement right because I have Rules.

Cool must be offset by to Warm.

Tints by Shades.

Hues by Tones.

I make myself crazy with moving squares and stripes around until I get the right order, and then still That One will jump our at me and I will see it ALWAYS.  It's not in the right place.  

I hate it when I look at other "random"  blankets and I see dark squares clustered together and it's not balanced on the other side.

I might also be a bit OCD about this.  

So, here's how I went about placing the squares on this blanket (I had a simpler try-out with Projek Bohemia V.1):

Balancing precariously on matress on quite a high bedstead, hence a distorted blanket

Starting out with nr 1, right in the middle of things. 

Then (2) added two contrasting squares, either sides.
Then (and here I wasn't thinking, coz I used the pink) on the other two sides (3).

Now I needed to fill in some corner gaps, so in went the neutrals (4).
And here I ran into trouble, because I LOVED the green (5) and wanted to use 4 here, so it went next to the previous cool colour...horror. 

Okay, flank it it with yellow (6).

Can't use orange now, because I just used it in the edges, so I cringed and went for the lime (7).
Okay, corner gaps, so back to the blue (I loved the blue as well) (8).
Brought in some warmth again with pink (9).

Flank it with turquoise (10) because that will look lovely.
It's been a long time since red, so...red (11).

And so on and so forth.  

And even so, with my rules, I had to break my rules.  

The same with the joins - the idea was to join the squares in very contrasting colours, hence the lime with navy, orange with taupe, green with pink.

And again, I broke the rules.

I'm not entirely happy with the navy-lined orange, but there's no way I'm going to undo anything now (contemplated that for a few minutes).

In retrospect, I could have left out the neutrals.  But then I also didn't want the throw to be too girly, because my poor, suffering husband has to live with it every day as well.

What I AM happy with, is the symmetry, or the balance. I must have balanced colour placement.  It irked me to add the rows on either side to make it hang over the bed (but I didn't want to add it on all four sides).

See, it will fit.
(That bookshelf?  It's the Still To Read.  Giving me nightmares).

So.  Now it's done and nothing is going out or in and I'm working on some border samples.  

My sistah says I always overthink these things.

Can't help it :-D

(So shall I add a row or to of SC in red or navy before I start The Edge? Just to mark the transition??)

Projek Bohemia...Trial Version

The end of the year is rushing up to me and I realised I'd quite forgotten to report on a few of my FO's!

In August, I started a trial version for my summer throw (at LAST I decided on something).  I absolutely loved the Sorbet & Lace square Cornel designed for Ideas magazine, and immediately all my other ideas for the summer throw flew out of the window.  First I tried it out a Elle Pure Gold, my favouite local acrylic (I had a ton of stash, and I had another idea for my own blanket...but first I had to master the pattern).

The pattern hooks up quickly and makes a nice, large square - great if you want to make a quick blanket :-) I wanted to try out some new colour combinations - bright, contrasting edges to each square, and also wanted to figure out the layout, which had to be seemingly random but not, ordered, but not.  That's the Gemini brain speaking.  Even when trying to work totally random, I'll still order around colours, as the lights and dark, cools and warms must balance.

Almost at the end, I made such an epic mistake, I still laugh at myself for it :-D  

But it was easily corrected and I could lay the blanket out, work away the ends and declared myself satisfied. 

A nicely sized lapghan

I used a different joining technique as I didn't want the large gaps of the original pattern, so used granny clusters of four stitches where I joined in the clusters as well as in the chains.  A friend and I sat over a coffee one day to look at the options, and decided that joining with SC's would look better than slip stitches, as it just give that tiny little bit of extra space to allow the join to lie flat.  

I don't try to block or even steam block acrylics, just gave it a quick wash, shake-out and let it hang to dry.  

This blanket was then donated to a hooky friend's charity group and will be donated to an elderly or wheelchair-bound recipient next winter.  

--- X ---

Sooo...in the back of my mind...was this, all along:

Colours of Grace, a 10 ply cotton, in the most beautiful colours. I bought more than a bag full and quickly had to try out a first square in this dusky pink:

It might be one of the most beautiful colours on earth.  And I'm not even a pink person.

It is available online from Beatrix at Btrix Designs or Hilda at Yarn in a Barn.  The autumn blanket by Pigtails in Simply Crochet 23 was also hooked up in this yarn.

I've made a decent pile of squares, but had to put it aside to quickly finish a few year-end projects, but come December, after unpacking in my new hometown, this is one of the first projects to pick up!

--- X ---

PS - a friend at Ons Hekel is using the same principle to make up a Bohemian Blanket, with a square of her own design, but also the colourful, contrasting joins, and it looks stunning so far.  She's using Vinnis Nikkim.

Look. At. This:

Gina's Bohemian Blanket.
I'm jealous.

Almost a Bohemian Bugger-up

When it's the end of a long, busy week, and you just made the 2hr drive with two lively boys to your aunt, and you're busy the whole weekend, and the little time you take to work on the Bohemian Blanket is spent squinting bleary-eyed at the yarn...

...you can only gasp at the horror of the mistake you realise only Three Rounds After You Made It!

What the...whaaat???

Tragically, yes, it can be done.

My heart rate is back to normal. Several cappo's later, the horror has been rectified, the ends have disappeared and Project Bohemia has been completed and is actually drying outside. 

Pffff.

(But I'm sure I'm not alone in this club...)