It’s those lazy summer days, which are great for some relaxing projects you don’t have to put too much concentration into. A blanket seemed like a great project to design while watching the Olympics! Still thinking along the theme of lines (in this case curves), I came up with Spirale to add to the Linyië series, which is a relatively quick baby blanket crochet project.

I made it in Serenity super chunky yarn (Rembrandt ~ blue-purple colourway containing speckles of multi-colour up close), which I’ve used in previous projects (the Kreuze pullover and the Pfade poncho). I like the texture of this super chunky yarn which is soft with a tad of alpaca in the yarn mix.

I was looking through my stash and I found a cotton-rich worsted Lang yarns skein called Kappa in white, which I purchased years ago in a sale and it provided a good contrast with the Serenity wool.

This project experiments with repeated curves to form a spiraling shell from a central braid in the super-chunky yarn – the length of the braid is one of the factors determining the size of the blanket; for a bigger blanket, make a longer braid.

The chunky braid is subsequently lined with the white Lang yarn.

Following this, the braid is crocheted together on the wrong side of the braid from the centre of the spiral and a filling stitch creates strands radiating from the centre of the spiral.

The filling stitch are worked from the centre, which are essentially elongated slip stitches, which has a similar effect to that of knitted drop stitches. To give the blanket a bit of extra character, the final outer edge circle of filling is made varying the tension of the filling stitch which creates a ruffled effect. The braid is joined together with the filling stitch without pinning the braid onto a template, but I’ve outlined a method for pinning the braid down to join it together in the pattern as well. Here’s a picture of the finished blanket:

For those who have some experience with Romanian Point Lace, aspects of this project reflect some of the methodology used in RPL by constructing the piece with a braid and a filling stitch, albeit in a much more chunky setting!

The pdf pattern instructions include written instructions and photos and is free to download at ravelry.com or just click on the link below!

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