Flying Geese - Story of a Crochet Blanket

Flying Geese is the 9th blanket in my book Rainbow Crocheted Blankets, which you can find in my Etsy shop - HERE

Flying Geese was inspired by the traditional American quilt block of the same name.

I love the colours and shapes used in traditional quilts, they share a common purpose to crochet blankets and so there is a crossover between the 2 crafts.

It is claimed Flying Geese quilts were hung on washing lines as part of the Underground Railroad Quilt Code; the Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes used by American slaves to escape the southern states where slavery was legal to the free northern states and Canada in the north.

The points of the triangles (Geese) pointed in the direction that the slaves should travel on their secret journey north.

Even if this is just a myth, it’s nice to imagine that a quilt could not only be comfort against the cold but also helpful as tool against slavery.

I love the idea that a quilt's could point the slaves to their freedom and wonder who my blanket is trying to aid and what/where its pointing to.

I used about 18 different colours, the blanket design is consists of stripes, the stripes slowly change colour from top to bottom, giving the blanket a very subtle sense of movement.

Wip photo's

 I really struggled to get the colours right, so there was an awful lot of frogging involved :-)

As per usual Billy performed his comfort control tests.

Finished photo's

Mirage - Story of a Crochet Blanket

Mirage is the 8th blanket in my book Rainbow Crocheted Blankets, which you can find in my Etsy shop - HERE

Mirage is a re-make of a quilt I made in the 1990’s, called Reflection of a Mirage, which was originally inspired by historical Turkish/Islamic city maps. 
The centre panel of the blanket depicts the reflection of a desert city, I can’t remember why there was a reflection, but as I love the way the shapes fit together I decided to stick to the original name and design.

The base colour is turquoise and fits into the rainbow as a replacement for blue, for me turquoise is the colour of the Mediterranean and works nicely with orange which is the colour used in Persian carpets, which also form part of the inspiration.

Most of the yarn is John Arbon Textiles Knit by Numbers DK, its a beautiful soft snuggly yarn to work with and the turquoise was perfect for my blanket.

Wip photo's

Finished photo's

Photo courtesy of Search Press.

This is my favourite photo of the book, because of the chickens. They are Buff Orpingtons, We had some Buffs about 10 years ago, they were much loved cuddly pets rather than useful egg laying chickens. 

They loved to eat rose petals and would gather around my rose bushes jumping to eat the petals from the flowers, they also purred if I gave them custard cream biscuits, sadly they were killed by a fox, 

One day I hope to have some more....

Maisy, Mabel, Gladys, Doris and Betty.

Plus Minnie, Mouse and Ethel, 2 Pekins and a Maran in the background.

Knot Garden - Story of a crochet blanket

Firstly let me say HAPPY NEW YEAR, I know its been a bit late, but I've been up to my neck in all the admin that I put off till "later". Later finally caught up with me and I decided the new year was a good time to clear the decks.

Onto Knot Garden, which is featured in my book Rainbow Crocheted Blankets, its sold out almost everywhere, but I still have a few copies left in my Etsy shop HERE
The book is being reprinted and will hopefully be back in stock in all the normal places shortly.

Knot Garden was inspired by a quilt I made about 25 years ago, as I loved the geometric patterns of Tudor knot gardens and I wanted to try out some mitred squares it was the perfect place to start.
I had no end of problems with getting the right colours and frogged and frogged and frogged again.
The edging on the flower beds is a little bit too dark, but I had to stop frogging or I would still be dithering nearly 2 years later :-)
So here are the photo's

WIP photo's

Billy doing his comfort quality control test :-)

Finished Photo's

Thank you to Search Press for allowing me to use this photo from the book.

Flower Power - Story of a crochet blanket

This week's featured blanket from my book Rainbow Crocheted Blankets is Flower Power.

Flower Power is the sister blanket to Liberty, it uses the same motif.
As Liberty was inspired by the fabrics my aunt used I thought it was only right I made a blanket inspired by fabrics my mother (her sister) used.
My mother worked for Singer Sewing Machines and made her own clothes all her life, in later life she was a big Laura Ashley fan and when she died we found a cupboard full of Indian saris she had bought and hidden away to use to make into dresses.
But I have chosen to design the blanket around fabrics I remember as a very small child, I was born in the 1960's and grew up through the 1970's,
I remember big bold simple flower prints using a lot of green, orange and brown, a colour combination I'm not very fond of, so I've swapped the brown for a dusky pink and violet.

WIP photo's

Finished photo's