A bit of a crochet post

I finished my sister's Aria blanket on Friday. It was a lovely day here on Saturday so I washed the blanket and spread it out on a duvet cover on the patio to dry in the sunshine.

Washing knitted and crocheted items always brings them to life. I didn't block either of my Aria blankets as such, by which I mean I didn't stretch and pin them. Just a wash, a spin and a gentle smoothing out did the trick in this case, and made the slight scrumples and scrunches disappear.

Big thanks to Lucy of Attic24 for such a lovely pattern - so lovely I made it twice.

I started another crochet blanket project on Saturday and this time its a big one. This thing is going to be about the size of a double bed sized duvet. The pattern is the Rainbow Sampler Blanket by Kirsten Ballering of Hakk Maar Raak.

The blanket is made up of stripes featuring various crochet stitches in a host of wonderful colours. I'm making it in the same colours and yarn as Kirsten used for her original blanket. The yarn is Scheepjes Colour Crafter and my word, it is the softest acrylic I have ever encountered. And yes, that is a 6mm hook for working DK yarn. In both knitting and crochet I always have to go up at least one needle or hook size to get the gauge required. My natural yarncraft tension is tight like a tiger!

In bead news, I will be adding a few beads to the shop tomorrow at 16:00 (UK time). I do have a mailing list that you can sign up to if you'd like to receive news of shop updates. The emails are very short and I don't pester you on a daily basis. This mailing list is not my old one (pre 2020) so if you were signed up to my previous mailing list and aren't getting emails from me, that'll be because you need to subscribe to the new one. You can do that here.

Big thanks to everyone commenting on my blog posts, and also to people who subscribe to the blog by email and who send me replies. It's really nice to know that people read my ramblings and it's always great to have a little conversation with you.