2012 in crochet

It seems a little bit silly writing this now, in the third month of 2013, but it's time to (finally!) reveal my 2012 Sky Blanket!!!
2012 Sky Blanket by fabric&flowers

It seems ages ago since I first started this as a scarf only to then rip it out and restart it as a blanket a few days later once I'd done a few tension calculations!!!

If I think about 2012 I mostly remember rain and grey skies, but in actual fact there were quite a lot of blue skies, or blue with clouds. There were also some amazing skies. Here are my favourite pics from each month... 
Favourite sky of each month in 2012 by fabric&flowers

It was a very eventful year: from a craft perspective I started dress-making and quilting which has been the beginning of what I think is going to be a very long and enjoyable journey! On a personal side, most of the year was spent building up to moving over a hundred miles: we bought a new house off-plan in April and because of all the bad weather didn't move until the end of September. Despite the upheaval, everyone seems to have settled in to our new home/life really well and I've been enjoying being closer to my parents, especially as my mum has been quite poorly since August.

It's been really interesting for me to 'journal' the year in crochet. One of the things that I came to realise was that my progress on the blanket was very much a barometer or how calm/hectic my life was at that point in time. Case in point being that when we moved I got about a month behind with myself!!!!

When I first started the sky blanket, one of the things I was very keen to do was to mark each month. Quite early in the year I came across a tutorial for making your own buttons out of shrinkable plastic, which seemed the perfect solution as I could personalise them however I wanted! I don't know if you've ever used this but it's like the coolest stuff ever!!! I initially thought of drawing a picture to symbolise each month but eventually decided that simplicity was key and just wrote the month on each button following the instructions in the tutorial and ended up with 13 (mostly round!) buttons
Making shrinkles buttons by fabric&flowers

So, enough of my rambling and retrospective musings......would you like to see the blanket?!

Ta-dah!!!!
2012 Sky Blanket by fabric&flowers

It's fair to say that it is a huge blanket, and one that I don't feel I've been able to fully capture in photos. The last seven days of 2012 make up the border, and each border row took about 2hrs!!!!!
Sky Blanket with 'Jan' button by fabric&flowers

I only used six different colours, but got lots of variation from using a couple of varigated colours which helped to keep it interesting. I kept the border quite simple, doing a little picot edging to break up all the monotony and because I felt that it complimented the ripple waves.

So, details - and I've gone all out here because I'm a bit of a numbers geek at heart! - as well as including details of all the yarns and I used and what sky they represented to me;

Pattern: Attic24's ripple pattern

Yarn:
Stylecraft Special DK Cloud Blue (1019) - blue skies, spring/autumn
Stylecraft Special DK Aster (1019) - blue skies, summer - hot!
Stylecraft Special Twirl DK - Sky (1654) - blue sky with clouds
Stylecraft Special DK White (1001) - snow
Stylecraft Special DK Parchment (1218) - overcast/cloudy
Stylecraft Special Twirl DK - Slate (1655) - rainy days

Amount of yarn: 17 balls

Size: 42" x 75"

Approx. number of stitches (!): 37,500

So there we go, 2012 is finally wrapped up!

Thank you all so much for following me on this journey - it's been so much fun and I love all the memories that I have woven into my diary of 2012.

See you all soon,

S x

Todays sky ● overcast. Meh!

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