Crochet | Harmony Blanket

When I first saw the Harmony Blanket designed by Lucy at Attic 24 I was in love with it.  I just adore the patchwork look of it, so homely and cosy.  My daughter Amy also loved it because her favourite colour is purple and the Harmony blanket has a lot of purple tones in the colour scheme.

I just had to make it. I have decided to show you both of my Harmony blankets in this one post.  The first one is in the Attic 24 colours and is so pretty and girly, the second is in the colours I chose from my stash (to use up leftovers from the blankets I had crocheted during the year).  I was a little limited in my colour choices but I am delighted with the resulting blanket, even more so because it only cost a couple of pounds to make - I just purchased extra balls of Stylecraft Special DK in Parchment to complete the borders.

 

As soon as I started to make the squares I was hooked (ha!), but I really was worried about getting bored with all the colour changes ........ and the ends! I quickly worked out that the best way to do this blanket was to get into the habit of sewing in the ends as I went and this is truly the only way to tackle these pretty little squares.

However, all that digging into your project bag for the next colour also takes a lot of time (and faffing around). The pattern calls for 9 squares in each colour sequence and I decided to do the squares one colour sequence at a time and in order (my organised mind!) to work through it methodically.  The 'eureka' moment came when I realised it would be much quicker to also do each round on that particular square one at a time (Lucy calls them square A, B, C etc).  So I would do all 9 centres of the square with the centre colour and then put that away, next take out the colour for round 2 and complete all round 2's of square A (or B, or C whichever one I was working on), then put that colour away and take out the colour for round 3 of square A.........etc, you get the picture.  Also, and I can't say it enough, sew in the ends at the end of each round. It was amazing!  The squares crocheted up so quickly this way and I whizzed through the blanket so fast.

As I finished each pile of 9 squares I thread some scrap yarn through the corners, added a little square with a hole punch in the corner to the scrap yarn and labelled that pile.  This made is so much easier when following Lucy's diagram to place the squares on each row when crocheting them together later in the project.

When I finished the blanket, after the gorgeous coloured border I wanted to just finish it off a little so I added a crab stitch border.  It was perfect.  

Amy loves this blanket and it is in her bedroom.  My Mum made the same blanket and gave it to Charlotte so both of my girls are happily snuggling in their Harmony blankets as I type this :)

Now onto Harmony blanket number 2.  As I said, I chose the colours based on the leftovers from blankets made throughout the year.

All of the blankets this year have been made is Stylecraft Special DK because it is just the perfect yarn for blankets that the family can use and have fun with.  This yarn is soft, hard-wearing and most importantly machine washable.  I would love to make this blanket in expensive yarn as a family heirloom but for blankets that the kids and dog are using, making dens with and dragging around I will use style craft and not care that it is acrylic :) (oh, but imagine this is soft, squishy BFL or a cashemere blend!).  

So the colours chosen were:

1. Copper
2. Gold
3. Saffron
4. Camel
5. Spice
6. Raspberry
7. Pale Rose
8. Parchement (borders)
9. Grape
10. Parma Violet
11. Petrol
12. Denim
13. Cloud Blue
14. Meadow
15. Lime

I worked this blanket using exactly the same method as I used for the first one.  It makes this blanket a very quick make, I think it took about two and a half weeks for the second blanket (and I WAS still feeding the kids!).  

 

I just placed the finished squares in piles on my side table with their identifying letter placed on top instead of actually attached this time, not recommended if you have little inquisitive fingers in your house.

Harvey wasn't very happy when I was crocheting the border as he couldn't fit on the chair with me :)

But he liked the blanket in the end.

I just love how these colours came together, I also love that I had the right colours to create a rainbow border.  Of course, I finished all off with a round of crab stitch.

I can see another of these blankets in my future, I just loved making them.

Sarah x