xenial xylem

February is the shortest month. Yet in our family it is full of celebratory events. Birthdays, anniversaries, you name it, it happens in our family to some member or other, closest or a bit further apart, we have a lot on in February.

This post is about a celebratory blanket for a different event. One that happens only once, usually.

Earlier in the year, i was super busy feasting my eyes on rainbow yarn, i got a lovely lot of wool from my sister. There was a lot of red and white and some turquoisey coloured yarn. I was not sure what i was going to use it for yet, but i liked looking at it.

This is what was going on in my head at the time:

Then i decided to sort some paperworky tasks i have been avoiding for years. Because of the expense, and the bureaucracy involved in completing the task, and because it really was not that necessary to my day to day existence to complete. Until things in the world changed. A separation of some countries from a union occurred. Understandably, this separation brought me a reason for finally completing the whole shebang.

So as a result of this, and to make it a little more palatable for myself: i decided to make a blanket in the colours of two flags. Because they are both the same colours, and as it happens both those countries are part of me now.

I call this blanket:

“Liptovske srdce, Londynske sposoby”

This is a direct lyric from one of my favourite singers: Sima (Martausova) Magusinova, see HERE her INSTAGRAM page and HERE her YOUTUBE.

The pattern in the middle is one i saw on YOUTUBE when i was working on the rainbow blankets – there is three (four) to date, btw, come back in March to read about them… It is called a Diamond Granny Square, and i have loved it since, because it is very relevant to my work being inspired by the Glass Artist in my life.

And whilst looking for the diamond pattern tutorial on YouTube, and/ or internet in general…. No, let me start from scratch and be honest, whilst searching interesting, irregular, intriguing crochet patterns online… Which is what i do regularly as inspiration, i also discovered the below mentioned Kaleidoscope crochet granny square pattern.

Use not loose

I wanted to of course use both above patterns for the next Utilitarian Utopia style blanket.

That was it! I needed no more! I trialled a diamond middle, and it worked well. Loved the pattern. I trialled the kaleidoscope way of working a square. After some figuring out of the way that it increases, i got there. Loved working with it.

The very fact it is called a “kaleidoscope pattern” is yet another synchronicity with the aforementioned glass artist, who used to make kaleidoscopes. Consequently, i had to use it! I worked hard on understanding it and making it work following the tutorial below. And of course, naturally, some trial and error…

Consequently, once i had all of the above figured out, and once the bureaucratic tasks were completed, waiting time has elapsed and i got the result, i was ready! On and on i went. There was my new box for wool, which got filed with the right colours. Somewhere in the making a star shape wanted to be incorporated. And so it was.

The result? Ginormous blanket was born:

Thank You for reading!

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