Brace yourself for colour

Guys, I did it - I finally took the plunge on gear for a colourful Attic 24-style blanket!

This only 12 of the 15 colours Lucy's Hydrangea blanket calls for, and also, almost none of them are the colours she chose.  I think Lucy's colour choices are key to her comforting, inspiring, cheery brand and I love them all, but I just can't blend that much pink and purple into my red/navy/cream-based decor, ya know?

I think I did a pretty amazing job because only three of the fifteen colours I chose were all wrong for the drapes I wanted to match. Working off small colour swatch images from my screen, that was a surprise! And when I went back to the Wool Warehouse site to find three replacement colours, I had no trouble. There are just that many available in Stylecraft Special DK. 

For closeups though, here are some proofs that the matches really are that matchy... even the gorgeous Pink Rhubarb, top right! I so hoped that one would, because I loved the look of it on screen and I really wanted to tuck in as many Lucy-adjacent choices as possible.

And the excess doesn't end there, because I didn't know what size crochet hook I'd need. Only that I wanted it to be an Addi Swing hook, because I'm taking a big enough risk crocheting a blanket after all that trouble I had with my arm over last year's sweater. So...

 

I got the recommended 4mm size, plus one larger and one smaller. 

Something I noticed about the three I got wrong (stacked on the left) is that they look right with my bedroom drapes, represented by this rumpled cushion:

So when I went back to the site to get the additional living room colours - bottle green, midnight (blue), and lincoln (a muted green) I threw in extra denim blue and parchment beige *and* a duck egg blue. But no more hooks! even though I think I might in future need a 5mm one. If it happens: excuse to go into a local yarn store, amiright?

The top left blue (north sea, I love that one so much) and bottom right (denim) are self-explanatory, but here's proof of the mistletoe green and parchment working for those stems on the bedroom fabric:

Ugh re my rumpled cushion. I guess SOMEbody was leaning on it writing furiously to finish a manuscript or something... anyway in the end, Pete and I agreed that the French navy blue I picked is just No for both rooms. It's really a royal blue, which makes me wonder the the official royal blue looks like. Anyway, it's not totally screamy with the drapes and cushions, but it's horrible with the more mallardy-blue sofa we have under the window, so I will think of something else to do with it. 

(and now I wish I had bought a ball of mallard blue... oh well, I can do it when I buy cream to do all the framing around that dream blanket!)

So, as you can see, I have been very busy this week! Finishing revisions to a manuscript that must be done by Sunday night, and choosing colours for a blanket I couldn't stop obsessing about, and visiting the Royal Winter Fair where I bought more alpaca yarn I will show you later, and being inspired by a friend's crocheted blanket with a very fine hook in wool... which you know I am gonna wanna try, if these two blankets don't knock me off my post.

But now I have to get back to that revision work. I am motivated, because I cannot even swatch for the blanket till it's done. Wish me luck...

And have a wonderful week. Thanks so much for dropping in, and I'll see you next Saturday!