Zooty Owl's Crafty Blog

Colourful Crochet, Craft, Cooking, and Contemplations

Monday 8 July 2013

Block Stitch Baby Blanket

The start of another crazy week!

Taking a quick moment to sit and relax.    Baked two banana tea loaves last night - delish (having a slice with a cuppa!).    I will share the recipe with you later today - would like to take some photo's too though there is not much left!! (Edit:    You can find the recipe HERE)

We have had a very mild winter here in Johannesburg with a lot of lovely sunny days.   Friday and Saturday were really rather gloomy though - dull grey skies and relatively cold - we spent most of the time indoors.   I thought winter had finally arrived but we awoke to wonderful sunshine again yesterday and today!

I finished pruning the last of the roses on Tuesday (I don't allow anyone else to touch the Roses - did all the pruning myself so my hands are quite sore! - not to mention my back!)   I am thinking that I might have pruned a bit too early as  I see my favorite Rose Farm  is only starting their pruning today!

Finished up the two baby blankets I have been working on in lovely creams, blues, lilacs and greys:


 

I used about 75g of each of cream, lilac, light grey and cornflower blue DK and about 100g of baby blue.  Also used about 50g of Elle Marble in the palest blue - unfortunately there was none left for the photo!

I wanted to use a "continuous" pattern for this blanket but it needed to be a bit "MORE" than a giant granny square!      Decided that a Block Stitch Baby Blanket would be perfect!    A very quick and easy pattern - works up very soft too:


Box Stitch Crochet Baby Blanket
4ch, ss to close;  3ch, 2dc, 2ch;   *3dc, 2ch* rep *to* 3x ss to close


Box Stitch Crochet Baby Blanket
Join new colour .  In cnr sps; *1sc 3ch 1sc 3ch* - rep 4x;   ss to join


Block Stitch Crochet Baby Blanket
Join new colour - a row of basic granny clusters into the 3ch sps


Box Stitch Crochet Baby Afghan
And then another row of sc, 3ch - rep alt rows of clusters & sc,3ch

The above photo's were taken of another project (a cushion cover) - but you can see how easy it is to get this going!  Play around with colours for different effects.

I made mine as follows:

Cream centre

Cornflower Blue for the sc, 3ch rows
Alternating single cluster rows of baby blue, light grey, cream lilac  
Repeat for 42 rows ending with a baby blue cluster row

Then pale blue Elle Marble for the sc, 3ch rows
Cluster rows in baby blue
Repeat for 11 rows ending with a sc, 3ch row in Elle Marble

Then 1 cluster row in Elle Marble

Then two rows of 1sc; 4ch

I used a "running chain" in lilac to finish it off!

And VOILA!!






Off to do some chores (YAY!) and then I will try to post the banana tea loaf recipe!

Until then ............

4 comments:

  1. I love this afghan. You do beautiful work and your color selection/placemennt is amazing. I love color. I was wondering about the "running stitch" I have not heard that term used before in Crochet and the photo does not give detail. Would this be similar to a row of single crochet around the outside edge. Thank you.
    Dorie at http://idealdelusions.blogspot.com/

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    Replies
    1. Hi Dorie. The edging is actually more of a braid. Go and have a look at my "Road Trip Scarf" pattern - I use the same edging there. I love your box stitch blankets - I was quite happy when I came across your blog as this was a stitch one did not see much of. There seems to have been a bit of a revival though - I have seen it popping up all over now!!

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    2. Yes, I noticed that stitch popping up too, there seems to be a rebirth of the old stitches and methods. I guess it is true everything old is new again. I had posted a photo of a blanket I made with the stitch to bring attention to the continuous Join for granny squares. I immediately got requests asking me to post the pattern for the blanket. I use it for blankets, shawls, hats, scarves, layette sets.....etc. It is an old stand-by for me. Never did care much for the holes in the standard Granny square. I have been very blessed to have my blog featured on several of the larger sites for free pattern listings. Much to my delight my patterns are well received. I have been at this since 1957, I call myself the eternal learner because
      nobody knows everything about anything so when I read something I don’t know, I just have to find out. I love your blanket, I just had to “Pin it.” Thanks for your reply. Dorie

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  2. Fantastic articles is post by you in this blog. You give a nice thing. Thank you for such a nice article. Every word og this blog helps me to give detail to me.
    Visit: Baby Blanket

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