Rainbow Sampler Blanket (Part 2)

• You can find general information and the patterns for the previous weeks for this CAL here.
• Yarn amounts used in Week 2:
  • Colour A: 39g
  • Colour F: 9g
  • Colour G: 9g
    
  • Colour H: 33g
  • Colour I: 33g
  • Colour J: 9g
  • Colour K: 29g
  • Colour L: 13g

These waves are a great way to shake things up a bit. And although we only crochet two wave rows, I’m sure you can imagine how a whole blanket in this pattern would look like!

While you work your first row of waves, your blanket might look a bit wobbly. That actually makes sense, when you think about it. The stitches in one wave repeat varying in height. The nature of crochet is that the top of the stitches want to align themselves as much as possible. Due to the variety in height, the bottom of your stitches (and thus the rest of the blanket) will try and form a wave. This will be sorted out when you crochet the second row of waves. This row is the exact opposite of the first row in terms of height, and thus the forces that pull on the blanket cancel each other out, resulting in a straight wave.

Bobbles are one of several ways to get a slight ‘bump’ in your blanket. In previous rows, we’ve made popcorns. Bobbles are a form of popcorns, but you don’t crochet the stitches together with a slip stitch. Instead, you depend on the height of the individual stitches and the tightness of the stitch to pull the excess yarn forward and make a ‘bump’.

Don’t be alarmed if your bobble stitches don’t really pop. Bobbles only tend to pop if they’re crocheted in between other tight stitches such as single crochets, and have nowhere to go but forward or backwards. Because we’ll be skipping stitches, our bobbles will form a small raise on the backside rather than turn into voluminous bobbles. Because we’re working them on the wrong side, the bobbles will pop to the front. If you can’t get them to pop, they’ll take the shape of little flower petals. In any case, it’s a beautiful stitch to try!

Your blanket should be able to lay flat while you work on this row. If your blanket starts to wobble a little bit this means that there are too many stitches for your blanket to fit into a straight line. While this can be sorted out to a small degree with blocking (in week 11), we’re not going to bet on that.

If you think it’s too wobbly, adjust your bobble a bit. Instead of 4 stitches per bobble, you’ll make 3 stitches per bobble, like this: (yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over) in the same stitch 3 times, yarn over, pull through all loops on hook. This goes for all the next bobble rows in this section too.

This section consists of hdc rows only, making for great TV-crochet. Let the rhythm of the stitches guide you, and you’ll see that you got this section finished before you know it.

Continue with part 3 of the Sampler Blanket Pattern.