I’m half crazy, all for the love of you!
I decided a few weeks ago that I needed a new spring project. I wanted to crochet something decidedly “pretty”. Our home is mostly filled with earth tones – brown, tan, rust, wood notes – and most of the crocheting I’ve done for the house falls along those lines. But I wanted something just for me, something girly, something adorable, something that spoke of spring. Something pretty.
After going through my Pinterest boards, I decided on an afghan. That didn’t narrow things down much. (In all seriousness, how did I end up with more than 6K pins??!!) But when I hit on this gorgeous daisy design, I knew I had a winner. The colors and design were perfect, and perfectly uplifting!
It screams spring. And the pretty? It is very strong. You can find the pattern on the Color ‘n Cream Blog, here.
As much as I adore the colors and the pattern of the squares, what I didn’t adore was the size. The original piece was made in mercerized cotton with a 3.5mm hook. The end product was big enough for a baby blanket, but not much more. I wanted something soft, sweet, snuggly and that took up space.
I decided to upsize to worsted weight yarn. This isn’t hard to do in crochet; most projects are extremely scalable by changing the weight of yarn/thread and the size of the hook. The main issues with changing materials are usually issues with structure. Changing a garment, for example, from acrylic to cotton can make it heavy and stiff. So, what about changing this blanket from cotton to acrylic?
I made sure to choose a yarn with a fairly tight twist and noticeable sheen, so as to keep as much of the integrity of the original as possible. The best one I could find was Caron Simply Soft. Finding it was lucky; I was shopping with my Stitch ‘n Bitch sisters – the ladies I craft with – and the lovely Shannon suggested Caron Simply Soft as one of her own favourites.
I loved the brightness of the colors. Having the right punchy lemon yellow for the daisy centers was particularly important for me, and the Lemonade shade was just right. For the rest of the colours, I chose Watermelon, Neon Orange, White, Blue Mint, and Soft Pink.
I’m using an F hook, as this is a light worsted yarn. With an H I would have had larger,
but less structured squares. I want to retain as much of the “tailored and tight” look of the original as possible. So far, so good. Each finished square is measuring in right at 4″, and I’m planning on a 12 x 18 arrangement of squares, for a total of 216 squares, but as I work more and am able to lay things out, that may change.
I do worry that so many flower squares will become too busy, and if that becomes apparent as I lay things out, I’ll just work in fewer squares and add a wider border. I’ll need to be a little more put-together with the whole piece before I can decide!