Tag Archives: Stylecraft Batik

Another Arcade

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It is really a long time since I have made an Arcade cardigan, but I have a good reason to have another go, as a friend has a new baby.

The pattern is adapted from Nicki Trench’s ‘Cute and easy crocheted baby clothes’, using Arcade stitch for the main body of the cardigan. This one is made in Stylecraft Batik Old Gold (1902) on a 4.5mm hook. The chest is 25cm across, and it is 29cm from shoulder to hem. It weighs 130g and I used four 15mm buttons. To make the button holes I did 2 stitches of a five-stitch shell, chained one and then completed the last two stitches of the shell.

I would quite like it to be slightly flared in the body section, but maybe I could work on that!

Hearts baby blanket

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Another very popular crochet pattern, that I have finally made time to try, and what a joy this one was to make:

It is a ‘Heart blanket’ by Marina Nikolaidou who is on Instagram as ‘Cotton and Wool crochet’. Mine is made in Stylecraft Life Cream (2305) and Stylecraft Batik Heather (1906), Sage (1908), Gold (1902), Rose (1916) and Pisttachio (1910) on a 4.5mm hook.

I made it slightly smaller than the pattern suggested, though full instructions are given for adjusting the size. So my blanket, which is 16 hearts wide and 29 hearts long, started with a chain of 102 stitches. It measures 63 x 53 cm and weighs about 240g. Of this 150g was the cream background colour, and about 90g was the Batik hearts colours. Each row of heart motifs used about 3g of yarn, so it would make a good stash-buster if you don’t mind random coloured hearts!

Thank you Marina for a really well written pattern – I can certainly recommend it.

Little squares blanket no. 3

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This has been in my WIP pile for a while, and I am so pleased that I have finally found some time to finish it.

Made in Stylecraft Batik Pistachio (1910), Rose (1916), Sage (1908), Old gold (1902) and Silver (1917) and Drops Merino Extra Fine Off White (01). See my original little squares blanket post for links to the inspirational blanket by Little Dove, and a really useful tutorial on continuous join-as-you-go corner-to-corner crochet!

This one was made on a 4.5mm hook, measures 66cm x 55cm and weighs 330g. It took one ball of each of the Batik colours and four balls of the off-white.

Little squares blanket

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One of the things I really care about is matching the right yarn with the right project, and to my mind this blanket does exactly that. Inspired by the 121 little squares blanket by Little Dove Crochet I have made my own rectangular version:

The blanket has the potential to be quite difficult technically, and I used a really helpful tutorial by the Patchwork heart to get the right orientation of squares for the join-as-you-go method. Each square is a 4 x 4 corner-to-corner block and my blanket is 9 squares wide by 11 squares long. Overall it measures 68 x 57cm and weighs 280g.

I chose a slightly pared-down colour scheme compared to the Little Dove original as follows: Stylecraft Batik Cream (1900), Sage (1908), Heather (1906), Old Gold (1902), Rose (1916) and Pistachio (1910) on a 4.5mm hook. I used 30g of each of the 5 ‘colours’ and 200g of cream. The border is two rows of (UK) double crochet followed by a row of half trebles.

The layout I used is here, but if you are feeling put off by the whole planning ahead thing then don’t be, as once the foundation row is set the other rows can be arranged as you go, ensuring that you don’t have any colour overlap.

Finally a big thank you to Faye at Little Dove designs, who was generous enough to share her colour recipe, and the link to the Patchwork heart tutorial. I love it when we crocheters can work together.