Among all the things I love doing, crochet is a favorite.

This spring I fell in love with it again as I experimented with crocheting some ribbons. When I had enough, or rather felt like I wanted to make something continuous rather than many small things, I decided to crochet a blanket from all my thinner cotton yarns.

Obviously I had a lot for some reason, and using it up felt a little like an act of “cleaning out my stash” but really, really slowly. Do you ever do things like that too? Find a box of materials that you don’t want to keep but instead of simply donating it to a friend or the thrift shop close to your house, you decide to “use it up”? This way of clearing stuff out is painstakingly slow and not efficient in any way at all. Especially if you end up with an item made that you still don’t want to keep, LOL.

But in this case I am ending up with an activity I love. It soothes my worried soul.

Granny Stripe Blanket

I am doing granny squares but in rows, so that it becomes stripes (granny stripes). I am absolutely loving the process as well as the result. I love these colors together, all the pinks and then some muted peach, green, off white and beige? I couldn’t have picked up a better color scheme myself if I’d tried. This just “happened” as they were all in my stash, and I no longer remember how I acquired them…

Let’s just say that I do not recommend my way of “cleaning out your stash” – although I do recommend crocheting or knitting a blanket. It is slow for sure, but very satisfying to add in different colors and see your project grow into something cute and usable. I will definitely use this blanket on the balcony when I finish it, although it looks like these colors will run out before it’s big enough for a normal sized human (me).

I made a rainbow coloured ripple afghan many years ago, in brighter colors and a little bit thicker cotton yarn. But I must say I prefer to work with this thinner yarn, it feels nicer in my hands, and even though the rows grow slower I absolutely love the look.

Here are some of my previous crochet projects, first my small friends -? amigurumi in Japanese:

And then some of the many other projects I’ve completed – mats, hats and misc: