memory blanket Archives - Grid and Bloom

The Memory Afghan planning

The only thing better than a Memory afghan is two. A friend asked and I agreed to crochet her Mother’s yarn stash into two different memory afghans. It was a huge project and the first step was to sort the yarn into two different groups. One for her daughter’s Memory afghan and one for her granddaughter’s (or her Mother’s great grand daughter’s) memory afghan. 4 generations of women, the youngest a baby, including a daughter, a mom and her mother.

We added some white to the neutrals and light colors for the daughter’s afghan. Pinks were added to the baby’s afghan. It was created adult size to get the most use out of the yarn and longest life for afghan.

They all started at this point. A wide assortment of yarns from a Great Grandmother’s yarn stash. She crocheted with worsted weight and has a variety of yarns here from Red Heart to Caron and others. The colors were a bit blah so we added a huge skein of white and then also 3 skeins of pink plus a skein of teal to widen the range and create a more girly blanket as one of the blankets is for an infant.

The Farmhouse Style Memory Afghan

The farmhouse style was crocheted for the Granddaughter who is now a Mom. A more sophisticated selection of neutral colors was chosen. Using up the beige, off white, yellow, powder blue, and grey yarns plus a few of other shades. The squares are all sewn together to create a softer look. The afghan is surrounded with a lovely scalloped chocolate brown border. The crochet blanket is 5’x 6′ before the border was applied.

The Memory Afghan for the Grand daughter's created out of her Grandmother's yarn stash.

The Floral Afghan

The Floral Memory Blanket is crocheted using the same basic floral square. Crocheting the whole blanket in the 3-d Flower Garden Pattern was our first idea. Weight was going to be a huge problem with a blanket out of all of the 3-d flowers. It would have weighed 10+ pounds, too much for an infant, too much for me! Such a huge crochet blanket would be a problem. Suggesting instead that we use a few squares of an adapted 3-d flower and then filling in with squares that were the same design as the one above. They look similar but are different enough to add in personality and age differences. The crochet blanket is

The Great Grand daughter's Memory afghan created out of her Great Grandmother's yarn stash.

Another photo of the Memory afghan for the Great Granddaughter.

So much fun to crochet and so many memories are tied up in these Christmas gifts. I have waited 6 months to show them to you. What a great gift idea and way to use up yarn stash!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and are working on a Happy New Year.

talk to you later,

Karen

June-FInishing Up is a reality. It’s hard to believe how many projects are on the verge or finished already! June is more than 1/2 way through? If I work hard I can finish another 5-6 projects and really clear the work list. Work and fun have been happening the past two months. I haven’t written or talked to you in several weeks now and so much keeps happening. Life is just like this, it seems to be flying past.

June-Finishing up the studio move

Finally the studio is beginning to take shape. There are a few more boxes to take back upstairs- Now that I can see them. I’ve recently moved about 8 painting projects out of the studio and into the living room. Which makes the living room cramped for a few days. The biggest two projects will go home this week which makes a little extra elbow room in the studio. Also several of the sewing boxes moved back upstairs which makes even more room.

I still have all of the tools and attic type storage type boxes. These will find their way to another place soon. I was even able to use the carpet sweeper since I could see it. Yay for me. Carpet sweeper because vacuums do not like the chunky bits that end up on the floor. Also the long strings of yarn and thread tend to clog up the vacuum works.

The photo below shows it shortly after the move. It is looking so much better. I’ve added an rug to catch the paint drips. It’s a great photo of one of the between stages of the vanity shown below. The painted version is so much better.

Finishing Up Paint Projects

Several different paint projects are completed and while I’m waiting on the photos to do a big unveiling. They moved out of the studio and so today was a big day of computer work and nothing but computer work. It appears that when we changed web servers for the blog we lost all the patterns in this shop. Today I spent the day adding as many as I could back. The free ones are a bit more ify. They have vanished and I’ll need to do back up from the hard drive.

The newest paint project is staring me in the face. While the base coat is on, I’m not quite sure what needs to happen next so it is incubating while I dream up the right designs for the next step. Another idea that has been in the works is a pattern flip book. Reusing the detail patterns adds some continuity in my work and giving them names helps me remember the basic design. Creating a flip book out of 3×5 cards might be the inexpensive way to keep designs at my fingertips.

Finishing up the Crochet Memory Blanket

The last memory afghan is well under way. I’ve started sewing the squares together so that I can stretch out the boring bits with the fun parts. I’m not much into sewing squares together. It will also tell me if I need to buy some more yarn. While this isn’t an issue for me. It is better for the client if I don’t load her back up with yarn! The purpose of the project was to use up as much as possible. I might write up a pattern for this afghan it is turning out pretty. It also makes good use of stash yarn! Do you want a written pattern for it or can you figure it out?

You can find the basic floral granny square pattern like the white squares here. Let me know if you want me to write out the 3-d flower squares.

Three cheers for June-Finishing Up! I’m so glad that it is happening. I’m beginning to be able to breathe with the to do list getting smaller.

Talk to you later,