Crochet collaboration

I seem to be making a habit out of blogging weekly at the minute...mainly because the writing's not going so well, the weather's finally improved so I'm outside a bit more, and I've a got a few creative projects on the go that involve media other than words.

So here's another of my non-wordy projects that's finally been completed. Remember this one? 
All about how Squidgeling J and I taught ourselves how to crochet. More specifically, how we mastered the art of Granny Squares. Yay!

Over the Easter week that the entire family was ill with a dreadful lurgy, J and I made 35 Granny squares between us. The aim was to make a knee blanket for my father-in-law, in the hope that it will brighten up his room in the residential home. All went well with the blanket, although the one thing no youtube crochet tutorial tells you about is sewing in the ends... There were hundreds of the darned things, especially as (as you'd expect from a colour-loving Squidge) there were at least three colours in every square. And yes, there is a rainbow square, slap bang in the middle of the blanket - but it wasn't me who made it.

The best bit was delving into the bagful of double knitting from my stash and putting it together in all sorts of different colour combos. It turned out to be quite addictive.

Anyway, squares made, ends sewn in - we were ready to join them up. We had to look up how to do it - if it'd been left to me, I'd have simply sewn them, but J found proper instructions on how to use crochet stitches, so we did it the 'proper' way instead. J's really neat - much neater than me! - so we made a deal. She'd stitch the seams and I got to sew in the ends...then she'd add the border.

And here's the finished blanket - ta-daa! Next time we're up in Yorkshire to see the in-laws, we'll take it...

The best thing about this little project? Not the fact that I've learnt a new skill, but the fact that I've collaborated with my daughter on something. Talking over the colour combos and working out the final layout and having a bit of a competition about how quickly we could get a square crocheted was time spent together that we might not otherwise have got.

And it got me thinking. See the square with the yellow middle, then red and orange fading into maroon? Three across from the left on the second row up? I found myself wondering what it'd be like to get the rainbow colours and blend in different graduating combos of four colours, so you get yellow, green, aqua, blue or maroon, red, orange, yellow, or pink, purple, red, orange... Maybe that's a project for the future. I've got far too many other creative things on the go at the moment to start another.

But watch this space, see if it happens!