Granny Goes Large Again

Do you remember this blanket here?

It's my Grannie Goes Large blanket and I made it way back in 2012.  You can read all about it here, if you want to.  More recently, I've been having a play about with yarn colours and I was trying to find a way to re-create the colour palette of this blanket without having the mish mash of brands and fibers that the original had.

I've always found it really hard to source all the colours I want from just one brand.  Cascade 220 has by far the widest range of colours but that wasn't so readily available then as it is now.  Even now, when it is much easier to source here in the UK, it's 100% wool and so a blanket's worth still requires a fairly significant investment and for me, there's the itch factor to consider too.  I still think that one day I have to dip into those colours again though.

The other contender is the famous Stylecraft Special DK.  Although they have a good selection of colours I've always struggled to find all I need from their range.  Despite the number of shades available, there always seemed to be some pretty large gaps and subtle shades were definitely lacking.  However, now this is starting to change too and with the new colours that have been added recently some of these colour spaces are starting to be filled.  Personally I hope they keep going and adding more to the range because as a blanket yarn, it's getting hard to beat.

Anyway, back to the point!  What I wanted to do, is make use of my lovely Stylecraft Special yarn cards and see now closely I could re-create my original Granny Goes Large palette now their range has expanded.  I had a fun afternoon playing with those cards and I came up with a selection that I think is really, really close to the look and feel of the original.

The photo above is the original blanket (right) with my new sample piece lying on top (left).  It's pretty close don't you think?

It's surprising really when you come to compare colours how they look.  Saffron is a colour I would almost never pick out and yet here it's perfect and the Mint that I used in the original is actually a Stylecraft Life colour and one that's nowhere to be seen in the Special DK, but I found that the Duck Egg is almost identical tonally and filled in here beautifully.

I love that there's always things to learn about colour.

Here's the palette I ended up with.  This time the original blanket colours are on the left and the new version is on the right, labelled with the Stylecraft Special Colour I choose.

I've also spent a little time getting the pattern written up and ready to go too.

I have a photo tutorial for the way I make My Classic Grannie Square on Crochet Corner but I thought it was worth writing the pattern up to, as it's so much easier to refer to the written version once you've got the hang of things.  It also meant that I could list all the colour changes that I made in the original blanket too, just in case you felt like following along.

I also wanted to add a border pattern too.  For the original blanket I used a border taken from Around the Corner Crochet Borders book and you can find details in my original post but I wanted to offer you something else that you could use instead.  After all, not everyone will have a copy or fancy buying one, so I've come up with a border of my own that I think it's still nicely in keeping with the original blanket.

Mine is slightly more simple than the original, which you can see in the very top picture of this post, but I'm happy with how my attempt came out and I've added some extra help for beginners so it'll be nice and easy which is what this project should be I think.

: :  GRANNIE GOES LARGE : :

by Sandra Paul

Download Now


It's a free download and I do hope you have fun making a super large snuggly grannie for yourselves.  I think there are a few ladies that are going to start a CAL for this blanket on the Cherry Heart Ravelry Group, so you'd be very welcome to come and join us there too.

I have just written this one and tested it myself, so any problems, please do let me know!

Oh and just one last thing, I know that some people do have problems with their grannies getting all twisted up and swirling around as they get worked.  I've been meaning to do a post about that for ages and getting this blanket out again has been just the incentive I've needed to get that done.  So, I'll be back with my 'Top Tips for keeping Grannies  Squares Straight' next time...

S x

♥

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