Yay! I’ve finally finished my first ripple blanket. This was always a test blanket, a blanket to learn on rather than a thing of great beauty and I’ve certainly learnt lots making it! I started over Christmas so it’s taken me just over two months.

The first ripple blanket I saw was the Coast Ripple by Attic 24, it was love at first sight! The coast ripple was the reason I learnt to crochet! I decided I wanted to make one in heather moorland colours, I bought a lovely bag of wool at Yarndale but then chickened out! I decided to use some spare wool to learn the pattern first. I have no idea what this wool was bought for, as I’m not a knitting person, it’s an aran wool, I had fewer balls of jade, hence the ripples are at either end, I used half of the jade, used up lots of blue and then crocheted some more stripes.

I got the hang of the pattern fairly quickly (her instructions are brilliant, aimed at beginners, even I could understand them !) More importantly I learnt to recognize when I had gone wrong (usually when I was tired or someone was talking to me!) hopefully within a few stitches so I didn’t have much to undo.

At first I couldn’t understand the method for tying in the ends as you go along. About half way up the blanket I realized I was crocheting into the middle of the chain, rather than under it, I changed over when I got to the stripes again and it was so much quicker, a neater stitch and all of a sudden I could see how to crochet over the loose ends!” Light-bulb moment 🙂

I was a bit concerned about the fancy edging round the ripple blankets, but during the Yorkshire Spoolettes shopping day I managed to have chance to chat to Lucie from Love, Lucie. She’s a brilliant crocheter and suggested just doing two rows of double crochet round the whole blanket. So thanks Lucie, I did just that and it worked out great!

My blanket has turned out wider than the pattern, probably due to a slightly bigger crochet hook! It should be single bed size, about 120cm wide and 180cm long. Mine was never going to be full length as I was just carrying on until my wool ran out, but it is about 140cm wide and 1m long! I’ve decided I’m going to take it on the WI Tea and Tents camping weekend and use it with the ripple going down! I shall take great pride in showing it to Sarah from Six Hills WI who patiently taught me to crochet at last years Tea and Tents.

Now I feel happy starting the Moorland ripple, my mum has just ordered the wool for the coast ripple, so we shall be able to compare notes! Look at those lovely colours 🙂