Granny stripes in Turkey

We have just arrived from Turkey. The first thing I packed for the holidays was the granny stripes blanket that I had started a couple of days before, together with my hook and the necessary yarn. And the first thing I unpacked on my return was a finished blanket full of new memories...A hot burning sun and pomegranate trees, warm evenings in the terrace, happy children soaked in watermelon, a warm sea with everchanging shades of blue, olive trees and crispy tomatoes.

I bought the yarn as suggested by Lucy in her pattern. The yarn is Stylecraft's Special DK. It is 100% acrylic. The shades are beautiful and the yarn is soft to the touch, a pleasure to crochet.

I will stock up this yarn to have it always at hand. After having worked with different cheap acrylics (all brands are priced equally), this one is definitely my favourite. Among the brands I have worked with, there is Patons Fab DK, which seems bulkier compared to this one (I would use a 4mm hook with PatonsFab, while I use a 3.5mm with Stylecraft's), the shades are very nice. The only downside is that it feels somewhat rough to the touch. Then there is Robin DK, which doesn't feel very soft either. The look of this yarn is a little 'messy'. While Stylecraft's seem to have all the fibers in order, this one doesn't, and they stick out from the main yarn, giving it an unpolished/opaque look. Sirdar's Hayfield Bonus DK looks much better in that sense. It is very similar to Stylecraft's. The 'messiness' is low, and the yarn still shows a nice shine. It is soft to the touch, and I would say that the best feature is the twist: firm and tidy, and stays in place, so the yarn rarely untwists. Palette yarns are ok, but they differ a lot from batch to batch/colour to colour. I have a couple of colours in my stash which look as good as Stylecraft's, others similar to PatonsFab, some like Robin DK...

Enough yarn talk. The finished blanket looks like this

I put care in making the sides of the same shades to give it a cleaner frame. The edge consists of 4 rows of double crochet (UK, in US terms single crochet), 3 lilac and the last one pink:

I used a 3.5mm crochet hook to make it more dense and I tried to make colour graduations towards a main strong colour. I am very happy with the result! Emilia is now the happy owner of a cosy blanket :)