Well, it took me a little more than a year (only working on it when we were camping in our RV), but I finally finished this afghan. The colors in the afghan coordinate nicely with the color scheme inside our RV, and the finished size makes a nice topper for the queen-size bed to add another layer of warmth on cold nights or to snuggle up with for a nap.
This free Fairy Slippers Banket pattern is a variation on the Which Way Filet blanket by Fiber Spider that works up quickly and easily from the center outward.
This Lion Brand Mandala yarn is soft and light, and the colorway is reminiscent of soft rainbow colors that would make a precious, cuddly keepsake blanket for a “rainbow baby.”
I had been hearing the term “rainbow baby” getting used a lot around knitting and crocheting circles, but I didn’t know what it meant, so I finally decided to look it up. According to Google, “A rainbow baby is a name coined for a healthy baby born after losing a baby due to miscarriage, infant loss, stillbirth, or neonatal death. The name ‘rainbow baby’ comes from the idea of a rainbow appearing in the sky after a storm, or after a dark and turbulent time.”
Which means that I am a rainbow baby myself, according to the modern parlance, because my mother delivered me after previously enduring seven miscarriages. I had no idea that I was born under this lovely, colorful label. Ha! 🌈
This filet blanket pattern is also ideal for a rainbow baby because the infinite paths winding and spiraling outward from the center symbolize the infinite potential contained within each new life.
This also means that maybe instead of giving away this baby blanket when it’s done I should just keep it for my rainbow-baby self. 😁 I could get another skein of this Honeydukes colorway, whip up another blanket just like this one, and then sew them together to make a nice and light but colorful, funky, and boxy rainbow poncho!
If I finish this as a baby blanket, I’ll edge it with 1 round SC followed by 1 round RSC. But if I keep this to be a poncho, I’ll end with 1 round SC before sewing the panels together.
I found a couple more skeins of the unidentified colorway aka “Highlighter Hell” (what I call it) by Red Heart, so I decided to use it along with some plain white to make an infinite granny square throw for my daughter who loooves these (horrifically) bright colors. 😉
After trying to work this continuous granny square in full rounds of a single color, I discovered that there was not a good way to carry the next color up for the subsequent round without leaving a long loop on the reverse side where I changed colors (see below). I was afraid that the only way to “fix” this would be to add a lightweight flannel backing to cover the reverse side and hide the loops.
I pondered this problem for a while and concluded that the best way to avoid it would be to use a two-color spiral method, so I went searching for a pattern and found The Continuous 2 Color Granny Crochet Tutorial by Fiber Spider on YouTube. Ta-da!! This method is an absolutely brilliant way to work a two-color continuous granny stitch blanket without having to tie off after every single round (and have eleventy-bazillion ends to weave in when you’re done, plus all those ends would equal a lot of wasted inches of yarn), and it eliminates the big-loop-from-carrying-up-the-yarn problem I was having. Like I said: Brilliant!!
Here's a comparison of the obverse view of working the blanket in full rounds of each color (left) vs. the half-rounds used in the Fiber Spider method (right). As you can see, the different methods are undetectable to the eye, but Fiber Spider's method results in a blanket that is fully reversible and looks tidy on both sides:
I just kept working rounds on the throw until I ran out of the Highlighter Hell color. Then I used some highlighter orange yarn from my stash to work a border of one round SC followed by one round RSC or crab stitch. Finished size is about 44 inches square.
I have a bunch of skeins of vintage acrylic yarn (circa 1960s), and I’m trying to finally use them to make an afghan. And although I’ve tried several different stitch patterns, so far nothing is really jumping up and grabbing me to say, “This is the one!” I’ve tried drunken granny, C2C granny, and circle granny thus far. I’m afraid I may end up defaulting to my favorite afghan pattern -- virus -- which wouldn’t be terrible because the virus afghan is lovely, but I thought I wanted to make something different this time. Ugh!
As you can see in the photos, I tried starting out in all the stitch patterns mentioned above. The furthest I got with any of them was in the “drunken granny” stitch, which I had seen some people talking about online but I hadn’t previously heard of this stitch. The photos they shared looked interesting, so I went looking to see whether the pattern was available on Ravelry but was disappointed not to find it here. However, there are several good video tutorials for this stitch on YouTube. I used this one.
I usually prefer to have written instructions to refer to, however, and I also can never leave well enough alone, so I jotted down the starting instructions from the video and also embellished them to work if using FSC instead of a starting chain.
Drunken Granny easy crochet baby blanket pattern
Setup row: Chain in multiple of 5 to desired width of the finished blanket (or FSC in multiple of 5 plus 1).
For foundation chain setup, row 1: Ch 4. DC in 5th ch from hook 1st FSC. DC 3 more times (total of 4) in same st; ch 2; DC in same st. Skip 4 sts; 4 DC in next st; ch 2; DC in same st repeat until 3 sts remain at end of row. Skip 2 sts and DC in last st. Ch 3; turn.
For FSC setup, row 1: Ch 3. DC in 3rd FSC from hook. DC 3 more times (total of 4) in same st; ch 2; DC in same st. Skip 4 FSC;
Row 2: Working into ch 2 spaces from previous row, 4 DC in next ch 2 space; ch 2; DC in same space. Skip to next ch 2 space. 4 DC in ch 2 space; ch 2; DC in same space repeat to end of row. DC in top of ch 3 from previous row. Ch 3; turn.
Repeat row 2 until blanket reaches the desired length.
Work a SC border around all 4 edges to finish.
For different looks this blanket can be worked in a solid color, in stripes alternating colors every 3 rows (or more), in an ombre gradient yarn, etc.
To me part of the appeal of the drunken granny stitch is that it reminds me of falling ginkgo leaves even more than an alternate version of a granny cluster. But I still wasn’t inspired enough by it to keep going with it in a full-sized blanket.
So … virus it is, I guess. LOL. Virus is turning into my go-to blanket pattern. Le sigh!! 😏
And thus the Pink Grapefruit Lemonade afghan came to be.
It shouldn’t have taken me five months to crochet this afghan (the virus pattern is usually quick and easy to make) , but I suffered a terrible tendon flare in the elbow of my dominant arm when I was about 80 percent done with the blanket and it took me several months to get back to working on it. Sigh! Anyway, at least it’s done now. Made this in colors to coordinate with the decor in our guest room.
Linked below is a great free video tutorial by Jonna Martinez that details how to make the virus blanket.
