I am really excited to announce the release of my new blanket pattern, the Hornbeam Blanket! It’s available now on Ravelry and Etsy.
I love leaves and wanted to make a blanket with a fairly traditional leaf-shaped motif repeated all over it. Someone suggested that it looked like the leaf of a hornbeam tree and the name was found!
The blanket uses the tapestry crochet technique but, unlike previous blankets where I have used the UK tr stitch (US dc), this blanket is made with htr (US hdc) stitches. This stitch is slightly shorter that the tr so gives better definition to the leaves, but it isn’t as dense or time-consuming to crochet as if I’d used the dc (US sc) stitch. I like to think it’s a happy compromise between tr and dc stitches.
Also, one nice consequence of using htr stitches is that it results in an ever so slightly ribbed effect which I quite like. You can see it a little in the above picture.
I chose to make my blanket with alternating background colours for each stripe of leaves and the pattern is written in this way too. However, if you prefer, it would of course be very easy to make the blanket with one single background colour (and/or one single leaf colour) and I think that would look really good too.
As the main part of the blanket is quite pattern-heavy, I finished it off with a simple dc border (four rounds), which sets it off nicely but doesn’t distract from the leaf pattern.
I chose the lovely Scheepjes Colour Crafter yarn to make my blanket and the four colours I used are: Alkmaar, Nijmegen, Meppel and Dordrecht.
The pattern includes photos showing how to do tapestry crochet with the htr stitch, full written instructions, tips and a chart for making the blanket. It would be suitable for an intermediate crocheter looking to try tapestry crochet for the first time.
The finished blanket measures 126 x 140 cm. However, the pattern includes instructions for varying the size to make a bigger or smaller blanket.
The pattern is available in either UK or US terms.
I had a group of fabulous testers who tested this pattern for me. Check out #hornbeamblanket on Instagram to see some photos of their work.
The pattern is available from my Etsy and Ravelry stores now and as an introductory offer there is 20% off until Monday 11th May.
I hope you like the pattern! Happy crocheting!