Mainly hooking bobbles

All week I've been working on my new woollen diagonal bobble blanket inspired by Tamara Kelly's Blackberry Salad Striped Baby Blanket. The repetitive hooking of little bobbles is just what I need right now. The bumpy texture under my fingers is wonderful and the color combo pleases me so much! It's going to be hard to send away but I will remind myself it is for a good cause. 





As you can see though, I am definitely going to run out of yarn. I am woefully short of the required 36 inch height. I am down to two colors and the darker fingering weight wool I am having to double up. I'm adding rows to both top and bottom to keep the middle stripes as symmetrical as possible. I'm only going to get halfway with what I've got.

I visited yarnsub.com (SUCH a helpful site) and found out that my main bright colored yarn is discontinued and am currently working out suitable substitutes. The super online store Jimmy Beans Wool has free U.S. Flat Rate and First Class International shipping during February and a great selection. What great timing! I will return to my crochet garment-making (the Tunisian Entrelac crochet top) while I wait for more yarn to arrive...or perhaps read my latest book Top Down Crochet Sweaters by Dora Ohrenstein which came in the post this week. Yes, I ordered it at last. How exciting!

Anyway until next week, craft on my friends x

The Bobble Blanket

The charity blanket-making continues in my Yak and Yarn group. My latest make is the Bobble Blanket. One of the other members of my group gasped "that would drive me crazy" but I found the repetitive bobble-making extremely soothing. Yarn over, insert hook, pull up yarn, repeat, repeat....... When my life is complicated and overwhelming sometimes mindless making in cute colors with my hands is the perfect antidote.

The bobble stitch is one of the nine squares from the Sampler Blanket that I designed this summer and wrote about a few weeks back here. I am slowly editing the Sample Blanket pattern as members of my Yak and Yarn group make their own glorious versions and give me their feedback along the way. I am hoping to publish the pattern on Ravelry at some point too. Well that's the plan! Other things with a higher priority keep getting in the way. The bobble was a favorite square so I decided to make an entire blanket in this stitch. Each one of the nine squares in the Sampler Blanket could feasibly be used to make a blanket.

Bobble blanket method:
Please note that I am using US terms and Craft Yarn Council standard abbreviations

To make a bobble: *Yo, insert hook in next st, yo, draw yarn through st and up to level of work. Rpt from * 3 times in same st, draw yarn through 7 loops on hook.

Ch a multiple of 2 + 1 (each multiple will give you one bobble)

Row 1: Sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc to end.

Row 2: Ch 3, *skip one st, booble in next st, ch 1. Rpt from * to end, bobble in last sc.

Row 3: Ch 3, *bobble in ch st, ch 1. Rpt from * to end, bobble in last ch 3 space.

Rpt row 3 as required. 

I used mainly worsted weight but did double up a lighter weight yarn for one of the off white sections. I used the yarn I had, stash-busting my donated yarn, so had to improvise a little. My blanket has 50 bobbles per row and measures approximately 34" x 34" It's a square which surprised me because I thought I'd made a rectangle before I got out my measuring tape. The stripes create an optical illusion. I made five stripes in three colors of 12 rows each: off-white, bubblegum, rosewood, off-white, bubblegum.
 
The one downside of the bobble is that it is extremely yarn hungry and I used up A LOT of our donated yarn stash. But it looks great and this particular blanket has been donated to an upcoming charity raffle. I am sad to see it go because it's cute stripes and fun texture made me quite happy. I can always make another!