It’s officially April now and hopefully, all the fun and games of April’s Fool should be well and truly over by now. As it was the 1st yesterday, the countdown can officially begin for the launch of Stylecraft and Jane Crowfoot’s’ Lilly Pond Blanket CAL, which begins with the launch of the first pattern on the Tuesday 7th.
The Special DK delivery of CAL colours has arrived, but despite all of the assurances there were still 3 shades necessary to complete the blanket missing 😩 Happily, I had 2 of these shades in stock however my supply of the shade Petrol was minimal – 3 balls to be exact.
Drama and more drama. After I’d finished banging my head against the wall of the stock cupboard, I realised I had 2 packs of a very similar colour sitting on the shelves. I think the Teal makes a pretty good alternative? In real life it’s slightly greener than the Petrol, but the difference is minimal.
Due to the ongoing issues surrounding stock of the suggested colours that I mentioned in my previous post here Stylecraft have released a list of necessary shades to complete the first clue, to try and help everyone participating. You can see from the chart above that Petrol is amongst the first 6 shades so there’s no avoiding it 🙈
Now lets talk tension and I’m not referring to the type caused by → missing colours ←. If you’ve downloaded the original leaflet from the Stylecraft website you’ll know that you’ll be using 3 different sized hooks to complete the blanket, 3.5mm, 4mm and 4.5mm.
As you can see the required tension for your double crochet is 4 stitches x 5.5 rows on a 4mm hook and for the trebles it should be 5 stitches x 2.5 rows with a 3.5mm hook.
Cut to my swatches now 🎬
Oops, they’re the wrong way round, sorry 😳 Even more embarrassing are the rather wonky edges. I did promise to post up my attempts, warts and all and my crochet is not the greatest. It got better as it went on though 🙂
My tension though, is pretty much bang on 🎯
It would be great to hear how you’re getting on with your tension test squares too.
Happy Crochet!
Confessions of a Fibre Strumpet 
I’m having some tension issues, so the progress may be interesting… I have to go down half a size (to 3 and 3.5) to get the correct width, but that leaves me short on the height. If I move up a hook size, I get the height, but go over on the width. I’m going to go with the 3, 3.5, 4 hooks as I get a consistent width on the two swatches with the 3 and 3.5, whereas the 3.5and 4 gave quite different widths.
I’m sure it will all work out in the end!
Hi Deirdre, how are you getting on with the first clue so far, have the tension issues righted themselves now?