Lizard Shawl

So I was in my local Abakhan earlier this year looking for some specific wool for a project I wanted to start. Bored of waiting in the car, my husband came in for a mooch around - it's amazing what seven years of marriage can do! My husband saw some wool on sale, showed it to me, and said these colours would look great on you. Well, I took that as an invitation to buy them!

The wool was Sirdar Divine DK, and there were two balls. On closer inspection it turned out they were actually different shades, but so similar that they work together in the shawl. You can see one shade (064) has an emphasis on dark blue with a silver sparkle, whilst the other shade (062) has dark green with a gold sparkle. You really have to look to see it though.

I chose the Lizard Shawl as my pattern, and enjoyed working it up. I'd love it a bit bigger, but it will go nicely over my leather jacket as the weather gets cooler. I just love the colours and the sparkle, and the textural marriage of the yarn with the stitch changes in the pattern - delish!

Sunburst Cushion

About this time last year I finished my rainbow crochet blanket (and matching granny bunny!) Upon finishing, I found I had a lot of the coloured Stylecraft DK left over, as you may have noticed by the amount they have been popping up in other crochet projects! I really wanted a cushion to go with my blanket, one that reflected it but didn't match perfectly. I considered a few styles, but eventually settled on the free Terra Cotta Sunburst pattern by Regina Weiss.

I began with the grey centre and then cycled through the colours in the same order as I used them in the blanket, using a 4mm hook. One side of the cushion expands from watermelon to daffodil, and the other side from daffodil to watermelon. I then did a round in grey, a round in back-loop-only to start expanding the edges, decreasing once between each "sunburst point", and 2 more rounds with the same decreases.

I lined both panels with some fleece I had lying around, and slip stitched the two panels most of the way together. I stuffed it, and then stitched the closure shut. It has made a nice, uniquely-shaped pillow that goes really well with my blanket.

Rainbow Crochet Blanket

If you follow me on Facebook, you will have seen lots of progress shots of this blanket as I've worked on it! It took me less than 6 weeks to make a single bed sized blanket, which I am so proud of! I also made a matching granny rabbit using this pattern. She's called Fizzy, and she has every colour from the blanket on her somewhere!

I used this pattern, Stylecraft's Blanket 9091. But... I changed it up a bit! Firstly, I kept it to single stripes of each colour all the way through, instead of switching to double width stripes part way through, as the pattern suggests. I also added an extra 2 and a bit balls of grey wool to take it up to a bigger blanket size - I think mine is wider than the pattern as well as longer! There are two colour options for this blanket, and I went for the cheaper Stylecraft DK. It's not the same as the one pictured in the pattern, but I love it :)

I may have caught the blanket making bug, which my wallet really cannot afford!