Daffodil Blanket

Several years ago I purchased a large quantity of hot yellow yarn on clearance.  I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but it was I Love this Yarn, so I knew I'd eventually use it.  A couple of blankets later (Zipper Blanket and the Blended Arrows Blanket), I still had some left, and I wanted to use it up.  This color is almost painfully bright, so finding colors to go with it was a challenge.  Then it occurred to me: if you're going to make a yellow blanket, you'll need some real variation in the type of yellow.  So I grabbed the leftover Buttercup yarn from the Speedy Afghan, and the leftover (I still have a ton) Banana yarn from the Easter Egg Blanket, and started looking through patterns.

I wanted the colors to really blend together instead of being obvious stripes.  Stitch 25 does that.  I've used this stitch before to make the Star Spangled Afghan, but for that I used a different color pattern, where 2 of the 3 strands were the same.  This time there were three distinct colors.  I love the way this turned out: it reminds me of daffodils.  This is a great way to make a single colored blanket look interesting: pick three shades of blue for example, and make your blue afghan.

Color Pattern: (1 row of buttercup, 1 row of hot yellow, 1 row of banana) repeated, ending with hot yellow.

Chain 182, then work stitch 25 until work reaches desired length.  Add the standard border to complete:
Add this border in Banana and you're done:
Round 1: sc around, 3 sc in corner
Round 2: dc around, 5 dc in corner
Round 3: sc around, 3 sc in corner
Round 4: dc around, 5 dc in corner
Round 5: sc around, 3 sc in corner

I used I Love this Yarn in Banana, Hot Yellow, and Buttercup with a J hook to make this.

Another Aggie Afghan

When I bugged my buddy about what colors he and his fiance liked, he wasn't very helpful.  All I got was essentially, well, we're Aggies, so maroon and white are good.  I say that isn't very helpful because all of my buddies, the people I actually make blankets for, are Aggies.  I don't want to make 14 maroon and white afghans.  That gets boring and challenging to make something unique.  But this was the first request for maroon and white, so I went with it. 

I actually had some trouble coming up with a design for this afghan.  I had already made one Aggie blanket, the 12th Man Blanket and I saw no way to improve upon it.  So, I decided to just go for simple, classic crochet.  Basically I did wide (8 rows of dc) panels of maroon separated by 3 rows of hdc in white, maroon, white.

Here's how I made it:
Chain 180
Row 1: dc in 4th ch from hook, dc across (maroon)
Rows 2-8: ch 3, turn, dc across (maroon)
Row 9: ch 2, turn, hdc across  (white)
Row 10: ch 2, turn, hdc across (maroon)
Row 11: ch 2, turn, hdc across (white)
Rows 12-19: ch 3, turn, dc across (maroon)
Row 20: ch 2, turn, hdc across  (white)
Row 21: ch 2, turn, hdc across (maroon)
Row 22: ch 2, turn, hdc across (white)

Repeat Rows 12-22, ending with row 19.  This border completes it.
Round 1: hdc around (3 hdc in corner) white
Round 2: sc around (3 sc in corner) maroon
Round 3: dc around (5 dc in corner) maroon
Round 4: sc around (3 sc in corner) maroon
Round 5: dc around (5 dc in corner) maroon
Round 6: sc around (3 sc in corner) maroon

I made this with I Love this Yarn in Aubergine and White with a J hook.