A Very Dottie Ta-Dah!

You might remember a little while ago, I shared with you my little Roses and Daisies blankie, for my little one to have in my car to warm chilly knees and the like.  Well, the intention was always to make another blankie for Daddy's car.

For a little while now, I have been harbouring the notion of making a ripple blanket and for some reason, whenever I think of this rippling idea, I always think of a 50's colour palette.  I'm not sure why this should be, but if the idea fits, why not use it?  I already had a few ideas of the colours I wanted, just from yarns happily nestling next to yarns in my work basket in a random kind of way and making what I felt to be 50's type collaborations all on their ownsome.  Before I got out the stash to play with though, I found this delightful paper that was the very perfect inspiration for this project.

It's wrapping paper from John Lewis but I don't know if I'll ever be able to use it.  How could I soil it with folds, creases and tape and how, just how on earth, could I give it away?  No, best I keep it here and admire it for a while and ponder what it's eventual purpose should be!

With this wonderful starting point, I decided if there were any other images that might add a little authentic weight to my colour choices.  Here's some of my favourites.

Who knew that garage doors could be so inspiring and exciting?  Well, armed with this scant historical research, I skipped joyfully off to my stash.  Is there anything better then sitting surrounded with lovely yarny colours, making a beautiful pile of colourful yumminess?  I think not.

I can't tell you how much I adored making this blanket.  Sometimes colours come together happily with little or no effort and other times they seem awkward and unwilling.  I usually have a good few points in a project when indecision, uncertainty and doubt fill my mind and sometimes these doubts are resolved or forgotten or indeed turn out to be unfounded and others, well sometimes, they stay.  This time though, there was almost none of it.  Almost every colour seemed most comfortable next to every other and they lined themselves up happily with me barely thinking about it.  What joy!  Only once in the entire blanket do I think I may have made an error and maybe I should have righted it but I prefer to think of it as one of those imperfections that makes the finished object no less perfect.

Without any further ado, I think we should have pictures.

I haven't quite got around to letting this blankie out of my sight and into the car to do the job it was made for yet, I'm not quite ready to let it go.  I just need a few more days savouring it's pretty colours then, maybe...

The Hard Facts:

If you're interested in some more practical information, here goes:

The pattern I used was the Neat Ripple Pattern

For the edging I used a variation on the Bobble Shell Edging

I used 14 colours altogether, 13 for the blanket and 1 for the border

I used a mixture of stashed dk (or nearly dk) yarns: Stylecraft, Hayfield Bonus, Jarol Heritage, Rico Merino Essentials, Patons UK Fairytime, Sirdar Balmoral and Bergere de France Ideal

The blanket measures 98 x 82 cm (38 x 33")

I hooked a total of 44 stripes (plus 2 end 'filler' rows/half stripes)

I hooked a total of 90 rows

I used a total of 1,464 yards (1,350 for blanket, 114 for border)

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