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!

Tried and Tested Tip Number 18 [Fork Pom Poms]

Believe me when I say I wanted to love this fork pom pom tutorial floating round the internet. The traditional cardboard ring can be a bit of a faff, and this seemed a great alternative.

[source: Eskimimi Makes]

Having tried it? I'm just not that impressed. A cute little craft, yes. But they are not the best pom poms ever made, partly because it is so difficult to tie the middle string tight enough when the wool is wrapped around a fork!

If you do give it a try, I have 3 tips:

1. Wrap the wool around the fork as "on top of itself" as you can - a narrower area means you can tie the pom pom tighter.

2. If you wap the wool round a bit looser, you can fit your scissors in whilst it is still on the fork, making cutting easier.

3. Your pom pom will not come off the fork looking perfectly spherical. You will need to trim, trim, trim!

[Experiment with different wools - I have used chunky, double knitting, 4 ply, and a very fine wool here.]

There are lots of great uses for mini pom poms though, whatever method you use. I can just see these looking delightful on top of a present :)