Heavy-weight stash busting!

Needless to say, I still have rather a lot of yarn in my stash to use up 😄 Despite Beverly telling me that I have an addiction to yarn, she nevertheless dropped a big hint about me making a blanket for when she does sleepover shifts at work ~ perhaps she thought it would help me use up some of said stash 😉

I had a shopping bag full of West Yorkshire Spinners yarn that I've had for absolutely ages, their Bluefaced Leicester (50g) and Aire Valley (100g) double knits, both of which are now discontinued I believe.  The former is 100% wool, the latter 75% wool/25% nylon.  I will be honest and say that I didn't really like either yarn as they're not particularly soft and squishy ~ perhaps I've just got too used to working with the Stylecraft and Scheepjes yarns!  Still, they needed using up so a blanket seemed the ideal thing to whittle that stash down a tad more.    

I used a very simple pattern, one I've used a few times before: Dottie Angel's ordinarily extraordinary blanket.  It grows satisfyingly quickly and the squares can be made whatever size you want ~ I simply chose to follow the size in the pattern and made it 9 squares long x 7 squares wide.  A couple of the squares did have to be completed with some of the leftover Stylecraft and Scheepjes yarns, but it isn't really that obvious to be honest.

I edged the blanket with four rounds of half-treble (US half double) crochet, with Lucy's bobble-shell edging to finish.  I don't usually wash my blankets before I gift them but because I didn't like how this one felt I did this time, on the wool setting obviously, and have to say that it felt a helluva lot nicer when I took it out of the washing machine.  I also decided to take a chance (considering the wool content of the yarns is so high) and popped it in the tumble-dryer, again on the wool setting.  What a difference that has made; despite my fears, the blanket didn't "felt" and now feels so much softer! 

This blanket really isn't an awful lot bigger than the ones I made for Ellie and Arthur, but my word it felt so much heavier as it grew in size ~ hence the "heavy-weight" reference in this blog post!  Having said that, though, it was very cosy on my lap as I worked on it 😊

I still have some of the WYS yarn left, as well as a fair bit of the Stylecraft and Scheepjes, so I'm currently working on yet another very multi-coloured blanket in an effort to use all these oddments up.  I'm not making it with anyone particular in mind, but Beverly informs me that she can quite easily find homes for at least two or three so watch this space 😉