Crocheted Blankets

I LOVE blankets. I love to wrap myself up in one and watch TV, read, sleep or just about anything. I also LOVE to make blankets, for myself and others. They are the best presents, something very useful but still personal. From graduations, birthdays or weddings nothing says I care like a beautiful homemade blanket.

I think my favorite crocheted blankets are old fashioned granny squares. They are so simple, you can do any combination of colors and have endless stitch variation

s. You can take the squares with you to work on anywhere. Basically, if you can stitch a granny square you can be set for life on blankets.

The yarn I love to use is Caron Simply Soft. It is soft enough that you can use it for baby blanket but can be easily washed and dried in the machine (it's an acrylic yarn). There are tons of colors to choose from. Since blankets use a lot of yarn I don't want to spend an arm and a leg, this is a great choice. Walmart, Joann's, Hobby Lobby and Michaels all sell it. I usually buy it from Michaels because they will often have it on sell for 2 skeins for 5 dollars.

I made this blanket as a wedding present for my friend Samantha and her husband Brett as a wedding present. Sammy's favorite color is yellow and was her wedding color. I made this blanket with a basic granny square using the yellow and cream colored yarn. I decided to make this blanket extra large that way both of them could curl up in the blanket.

This blanket was made for my friend, Ben, for his college graduation. I chose the colors simply because they were boyish. Once again the yarn is Caron Simply Soft. I love the dramatic contrast between the darker blue and brown with the taupe color.

FYI. There are two parts that I dislike about granny squares, weaving in the ends and sewing the squares together. I have found that if you weave in the ends as you go it makes this a lot less tedious at the end. As for the sewing, I no longer do it. Instead I crochet my squares together. I find that it is much faster and also holds the blanket together better. The blanket I made for Ben was originally sewed together but started coming undone so I took it apart crocheted it together instead. I learned how to from this blog

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/joining-granny-sqaures.html

The blogger, Lucy, has a bunch of tutorials and patterns that are very easy to follow. I used her tutorial to learn how to do a ripple pattern that I am using on a blanket for my roommate, Kelly (which I will post pictures of soon!)

I have several other blankets I want to share but am at my parents house in western Colorado and don't have pictures of them on my computer. When I am back in Boulder, I will put them up as well.