Wednesday 3 December 2014

Merry Christmas Throw


♥Wow♥ .... I am delighted with my Merry Christmas Throw. I participated in The Blog Hop CAL with some very talented craftswomen each designing some beautiful squares.   It is so very hot here in Johannesburg during our Festive Season, I knew I wanted to make a statement blanket, not 'cuddle me and keep me warm' blanket, so the idea came to me to make a Christmas theme throw.  Not too big, just enough to make a pop of Christmas colour. And jolly jingle bells!!! this throw does make a huge pop of beautiful, traditional colour in red, white and green!! Makes my very neutral colour, all time favourite chair take centre stage!!!



The throw consists of twelve squares of about 9.5" / 24cm each, and the border is one of my current go-to patterns, the Block St.  To finish off with a merry flourish, I used a Braid edging.



The following pictures show how I have joined the squares. Sometimes, as in the CAL featured here, squares are made up and often will have an different stitch count per square. To overcome this and to join the squares easily and attractively, this is the way I do it:

First I choose the square with the easiest stitch count on which to base the consequent squares.  I chose a traditional Granny square.

*I edged the square with the two rows which constitute the basic two rows of the Block st, i.e. 1sc, 3ch, skip 2/3 sts, 1sc;  all around the square, and then three dc into each 3ch loop.  

*Around the second square, work the first row of the Block st, and as you work along you need to make sure you have the exact same number of 3ch loops as your first square.  If you look carefully at the pictures below, you will see that I have gaps of three stitches and four stitches between the single crochet stitches, worked across the side of the square evenly, so that at the end of the row there are the same number of 3ch loops as the first square.  The corners are 2sc, 2ch 2sc, into the corner spaces in the first of the Block St and 2dc, 2ch 2dc in the second row.  I used the 'join-as-you-go' principle to join the squares. 

*Dedri from Look at what I Made blog, has a very good tutorial on joining squares with different stitch counts, you may like to take a look here as well.








These are a some of the pretty squares ...








Thank you for reading and 
happy hooking!
Pat xxxxxx

10 comments:

  1. Gorgeous blanket Pat. I love the Christmas colors.

    Linda

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  2. Oooh it is lovely!!!! So Festive!

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  3. Love Love! your Christmas throw it's beautiful :)

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  4. That is a fabulous blanket. Will you be keeping it or gifting it?

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  5. Your blanket is so lovely - just perfect for Christmas. I am going to have to make one of these ready for next year, add it to my list of other makes and I am going to need about 18 months before the next Christmas comes!! You did a great job, it is beautiful.

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  6. This throw is just spectacular! The colors really do pop and you did such a beautiful job joining the squares and finishing it off with a beautiful border. Just lovely.

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  7. That is stunning! The colours are So Christmassy! X

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  8. It looks perfectly Christmassy! Well done, and thank you so much for sharing :) Marie xx

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  9. oh what a great way to join dissimilar squares (or even similar ones!) i love that block stitch and great picture tute to show me how :)

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