Halfway through crocheted temperature blanket

I'm exactly half way through my 2016 crocheted temperature blanket. Here it is on my dining room table looking splendid, if I do say so myself.

January is far away at the fireplace end, June is closest to the camera.

So far it is 56 inches long which means it will be approximately 112 inches long at the end of the year making it long enough to generously cover a single bed. We don't actually have any single bed in our home but hope to by the end of the year.

At the moment, we don't have any guest facilities at our home, the only bed is our own double one though we have a sofa in MTM's study which converts into a Futon as an emergency measures and the sofa is always available at a pinch if we need to put anyone up.

One of the rooms I have earmarked for a spare bedroom with hopefully twin beds is planned to have major works on it very soon! Will our renovations never be finished?! We estimated it would take us two years when we moved in (three years ago) to do everything we wanted and it still feels like we have two years yet to do but we have found more to do as we got stuck in, family illnesses have taken up some of our time and also we've got a little more ambitious our plans as we've gone along but there's no reason to rush save it would be nice to finish and then sit back and enjoy it.

Other blog postings about progress earlier in the year on this blanket which details the pattern and colours of Stylecraft yarn that I'm using:

Meteorological colour clashes - 4 June 2016
Warming up on temperature blanket - 4 April 2016
Temperature blanket - 16 January 2016
Starting a temperature blanket - 6 January 2016

Here are individual month close ups of the temperature rows; top of the image is the 1st of the month going down to the end of the month (to within a day or two). Spring temperatures (and colours) arrived all in a rush in May in the UK!

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH 

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

I have plans to do a weather blanket next year which will incorporate more aspects of the weather like how sunny/rainy it is and wind speed ... am pondering how to do this at the moment and filtering my ideas - more on that soon! 

Getting my Unfinished Objects completed

I'm busy getting my UFOs completed so I'll have time to do the CAL next month.

Here's a less colourful version of the spiral blanket on the back of the sofa, I've turned the circular spirals into hexagons this time. I don't know why I was so bothered about the border .... you can't see it!

Rainbow spiral blanket (or afghan) finished

My rainbow spiral blanket is finished! 

I had to undo the first border I did, as you can see below, the original edging is all curling up on itself. As I was working it, I was telling myself not to worry, that blocking would soon straighten it out but by the penultimate row, it was clear that nothing short of steamrollering it would make it lay flat. 

This time, I worked up a design on a small scale rather than just "diving in", the swatch I made laid flat and so here is a close up of the new border it as it was being blocked. On the previous version I'd gone round the post of the row underneath to give some interest. This time I just used a double crochet (UK terminology) spike stitch into an intermediary black row.

Here's another photo of the blanket being blocked on my dining room floor laid out on towels.

If you're interested in me writing up the pattern explaining how I did it, contact me through my Ravelry account (SoozJewels) or leave a comment below. If there's demand, I'd be happy to do so!

Spiral rainbow crochet blanket (or afghans as some people call them)

Being stuck with my leg on a cushion for the past week has meant I've had time to get started on a new project. It's going to be a rainbow blanket made up of these crocheted spiral circles each made with three different colours. The above photograph shows the colours that I've picked, I need quite a few more than the ones in the pic!

These colourful circles are going to be turned into hexagons using a couple of rows of shaping in black and then sewn altogether. Piled up like this, I thought they looked like colourful pancakes, DH thinks they look more like poppadoms, he was about to start cooking a fish curry at the time so I guess the imagery is understandable.

I've started a project for it in my Ravelry account, I'll be adding the yarn and colours I've used in there when I get a chance and I'll also write it up as a free pattern. For now, I've been sitting normally for too long and my shin is complaining so I'm going to put my leg up and get going on crocheting some more.

When I started on this, the weather was really grey and dreary and I was fed up of sitting still, the colours really helped lift my mood, I hope these pics do the same for you!