Creating a colour palette for an heirloom crochet blanket I've made once before, and buying the yarn needed to make it.
My favourite crochet pattern of all time is Sophie's Universe by Dedris Uys (Ace). I made one of these a few years ago as a gift. It took me a few months to make, and I poured my heart and soul into it. The pattern itself is pure joy. Every round is different and introduces new crochet stitches. Unlike most long-form projects like blankets or clothing, I didn't get bored from repetition, as there was none.
I consider this to be an heirloom blanket, a once in a lifetime project. Or in this case, twice in a lifetime.
This is the one I made last time:
I bought a yarn kit with all of the colours already chosen for me. I LOVE how it turned out. It's so, cheerful.
The XL stonewashed yarn from Scheepjes used in the original blanket was perfect, so I stayed with it.
One of the really special things about this yarn is that it has a hollow core, which means you can make some beautifully plush feeling blankets that are very light.
The yarn also has a slight halo effect where the threads fuzz out. This makes the yarn fit into the "fluffy" category, but not in the traditional way that yarns are fluffy. It is also pill resistant, so the blanket will look just as good years later as it did when originally made.
This time, I decided to choose my own colours.
To choose the colours, I started by creating a palette of the original colours. Then I created a second palette, and used a colour picker to choose from the yarn options until I was happy with the colour combination.
The biggest change, was swapping out the white to black. The black yarn isn't pure black, but more like a charcoal with threads of grey through it, it's really beautiful. I think it'll make the other colours really pop.
Then, I made the purples shift to a brighter read, and boosted up the yellows and greens because they work together as complementary colours, and also because they remind me of sunlight shining on leaves.
The total cost for the new yarn palette was $445.20, ordered online from Lola Lovegrove.
Having made this once before, I know what the making process will look and feel like. I'm going to get this burst of inspiration and work through the middle of the blanket fairly quickly over a couple weeks.
Over time, it'll get to the point where a single round around the perimeter of the whole blanket will take an hour or more to make. I remember really struggling to get through those rounds.
Buut, I know that's going to happen and still want to go ahead with this anyway. I'm very excited to see what this is going to look like at the end with the bright colours popping out of the onyx background.