African Flower Blanket

Ta-da!!!! The first blanket that I made for myself (and Matthew) is finally finished! It took over a year, but I did make about six other blankets in that same time 😁 I should've waited for better light to take pics, but I was too excited. 378 flowers -- each of them unique, done pretty randomly, and I just happened to have the exact right amount as I was finishing my last row -- so serendipitous! Can't wait to cozy up in it, haha! Perhaps in the fall?  









I first saw this blanket on pinterest linking to a blog in the Netherlands -- I'll include it here:  (african flower blanket) and I was distressed to find no information on a pattern or colors -- not that I usually include those sorts of details in my posts either, haha!  But I'll turn over a new flower petal and include some of those specifics.  I found a pattern and tutorial at Heidi Bears and just did the first four rounds.  I decided to used Lucy's hexagon join as you go method so I saved the gray section for the joining stage.  All of the yarn is Stylecraft from Wool Warehouse and I used these colors:

✽ sherbet ✽ turquoise ✽ empire ✽ grass green ✽ petrol ✽ violet ✽ spring green ✽ duck egg ✽ lobelia ✽ cloud blue ✽ aster ✽ bluebell ✽ aspen ✽ lemon ✽ teal ✽ white ✽ silver ✽


I did it all very haphazardly -- more organized people would probably cringe at my method, or lack thereof.  For a while I would do a pile of centers of one color, and then change the next rounds and then I did piles of using only two alternating colors instead of three... pretty random.  And then with joining I never even figured out ahead of time how many I would need in each row!  I just had all of the flowers in a bag, pulling one out at a time and only putting it back if the colors were too similar to what was directly around it, hoping I wouldn't get to the end and have only bright green left!   I joined them by doing a sort of herringbone pattern back and forth while the rows got longer in each direction.  I thought I might have to go back and do a few more, but as a mentioned above, I miraculously ended up with the exact right amount!  How freaky is that?  I love magical things.  I first thought I would have a curvy edge, but then decided I liked the look of straight edges better so I did have to hurry and do some half hexagons in the silver before I could start the border.  I used the border from a blog called dover and madden.  I did the first five rows wrong at first!  It was so frustrating!  At first I couldn't figure out why it didn't look right, but by the time I did realize I was very far along -- this blanket is humongous!  But I knew that I would be happier if I started over and did it correctly and it is true!  I always have to tell myself that it is not about finishing a project -- it is about the PROCESS!  So, it is fine if I have to spend a little more time.  It's not like I had a deadline hanging over my head. I think it is one of my favorite borders ever.  There you have it!  If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them!