Thursday, December 7, 2017

Flower Puddles Blanket - Pattern Review

I somehow stumbled across this beautiful pattern from the MadMadMe blog:



http://madmadme.com/flower-puddles-collection/

Flower Puddles


https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/flower-puddles-ripples-blanket


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And I fell in love! The pattern is now $4.00 and as a pattern writer, I have a hard time purchasing patterns if I absolutely cannot come up with a similar design on my own (for my own use). I couldn't get very far so I took the plunge and purchased the pattern and I love love love how it turned out.


I began working on in right away. I got so excited to see the ripples form and the petals blooming. I just love the way the back post double crochet stitches make an elegant design across the entire blanket. It only took me about 2 weeks and I was able to finish a 26" mini blanket.

I really love this color yarn. As you might know, I use, almost exclusively, Caron's simply soft yarn. This color is called soft green, although I like to think of it as a muted mint. The color is so gorgeous this photos simply don't do it justice.




The soft green blanket took me 2 skeins of yarn with a size J hook. The pattern continues so you can make it as big as you want but I decided to stop at this point.




I loved this pattern so much, I have already started a second pattern made with two strands instead of one. I'm interested to see how large this piece will work up, and I love how the thicker yarn is making the ridges and ripples more defined. 


I purchased this pattern on Ravelry:

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/flower-puddles-ripples-blanket

and I highly recommend the pattern. I wasn't a huge fan of how the pattern was written, the author put in parenthesis the British crochet terminology right inside the pattern, which was written in US terminology. It was kind of agitating to look for a stitch count only to have those terminology bits stand out so much. 

The pattern is written out in a paragraph format, so there are no shortcut quick reference to look at really quickly to remember what I'm supposed to do for a certain round. After working through the pattern I simply wrote down one line translating the paragraph format into a shorthand crochet pattern so that I could quickly review what the pattern was for that line. It made it SOO much easier and I was able to work through the pattern much more quickly with the reference.

I also had a problem with gauge. There is no explicit gauge on the pattern, only that "if it starts buckling, use a larger hook". I know I crochet a little tightly, so I went up from an H hook recommended by the yarn manufacturer to a J. There was still buckling in the back but I think it is going to happen no matter what because of how many back post double crochets are in the pattern.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my purchase and I highly recommend this design.

Happy crocheting!!