On the needles: Rainbow blanket

My latest project is a crocheted blanket in a rainbow of colours

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I wasn’t meant to be starting another project (I still have a dress to knit and a blanket to crochet), but someone on a Facebook group I'm a member of advertised for sale a pack of acrylic in rainbow colours and my brain just went ‘That would make a great blanket!’ So I bought it.

I knew I wanted crochet rather than knitting, and I knew I wanted granny squares: something plain to show off the varigated nature of the yarn combined with something more lacy for interest. I found two suitable – and free! – patterns on Ravelry and started crocheting.

I knew I wanted granny squares – something plain to show off the varigated nature of the yarn combined with something more lacy for interest

I didn’t know how many squares I’d be able to make with a single ball of yarn, so it was really just a case of getting on with it and hoping I’d have enough squares to make a decent-sized blanket. I wanted one colour per row, and I figured I’d need two of the lacy squares and a minimum of four solid so that I could swap the positions of the former around in each row.

It turns out that I can get two lacy squares and five solid ones from each ball. Each square is 18x18cm and there are eight balls of yarn. That gives a blanket of 126x144cm, which is a pretty good size. I’ve done six of the eight balls so far, giving me 42 squares, of which 18 have been pinned out and blocked. I hate blocking, but the squares do look so much better afterwards, so I can’t help but think it’s worth the extra bit of effort.

Nine squares blocking.

What remains is the decision on how to border and join the squares. I see three options. One, no border – just join. The second option is to join the colours in a strip and then put a white border around each of these before joining them. Third would be a border around each square and then joining the squares. With each option I would finish by crocheting a white border around the whole blanket.

The first option would best preserve the rainbow effect and involve the least work, but the colours might not stand out enough and the effect of the lacy squares could be lost. I think the third one would look good, but the rainbow would be lost – it’s also the most amount of work.

Trying to picture the three options in my head, I think maybe the second could be a good compromise between one and three. A thin white border between each strip should make the different colours stand out and show of the lace squares, while preserving those rainbow shades that really were the whole point of the blanket in the first place. I would then add a slightly thicker, possibly even scalloped, white border around the whole thing. Decision made!

I might not enjoy the blocking, but the squares do look better, especially the lacy ones.