My Dottie Angel inspired crochet blanket is finally done, hooray!!

Its been the perfect day to put my Dottie Angel inspired blanket, a.k.a our new Picnic Blanket to very good use.

It has been several months WIP and it feels so good to finally have finished it. I finished the main blanket a couple of weeks ago and then really enjoyed doing this 'block edging' border, which I got from the Handbook of Crochet Stitches. This is a great book that illustrates over 200 stitches and comes in really handy. Despite my little dilemma of running out of yarn for the border, I am really pleased with the final result and love the grey, but then I have to confess I am quite partial to a bit of grey everywhere (around the house that is, for now anyway!) I felt the expression every cloud has a silver (grey) lining in this case to be quite apt.

 

 

 

In retrospect there are definitely quite a few design flaws here but that's a product of winging it rather than planning it, something I am getting rather good at as life matures. The good news is that it kinda works for a picnic rug as it will only be catering for bums, messy hands and toes, but there is a lesson and note to self to be slightly more strategic about the next blanket project, rather than applying the grab-and-go philosophy.

 

Once I did the border, which actually took little time, it was time for some doilies. This was the absolute selling point of Dottie Angel's ordinarily extraordinary blanket for me, and although I have changed the colours and the size of the blanket, I simply had to copy the idea of the lovely doilies. I ended up doing 35 squares (5 rows of 7) and I used left over scraps of Aran yarn and the odd bit of DK here and there. My aim was to use up some of my left over yarn rather than buying anything new, and as it was only for a picnic rug, I didn't care too much that some of the squares weren't perfect. I quite liked the idea of using up yarn and I have to say it felt rather satisfying in the end. I am such a yarn hoarder that sometimes it calls for a little 'spring clean' and this Picnic Blanket was just the ticket.

 

 

Now that all the doilies are on, I might have to remove the middle one and dye it blue to give it a little more impact as the middle doilie is currently just being swallowed up against the cream backdrop. Definitely a job for a later date, in the meantime it was put to very good use today on our trip to Tittesworth Reservoir. My doh (darling other half) took the day off and with a promise for sunshine, we felt a trip to this beautiful part of Staffordshire couldn't be missed, so we packed a picnic, our new Picnic Blanket and off we went.

Tittesworth is the perfect day out for a family as there is a wonderful park with everything a child could want, including a great big sandpit. Our kids just loved it, they had such a fab day and I could happily join them for once thanks to super easy access.

 

 

Normally my doh does the park trips and outing with the kids, so it was soo lovely to join in some of their fun

 

I also made the very most of soaking up the sun and not only did I improve my vitamin D and happy hormone count, my crochet hormones were ELATED. Yes, I had time to do some much needed hooky and it was fun to be bursting with sun doing these little Sunburst Granny Squares. I am really enjoying working these at the moment and will shortly share the result with you.

Hope you have all enjoyed a lovely Friday and wishing you all a very lovely and creative weekend.
Hannapat xoxo