The Ripple Revealed

Remember this?

Well now it looks like this:

Which means that what started out as this:

Is now this:

Yes, the ripple blanket is done. Finished. Finito. I put the last stitch in the blanket last night. Sewed in the last end. Snipped off the last bit-to-be-snipped-off and then just sat there thinking, 'now what?' Meanwhile, on the shelves across the living room, a variety of half-finished things cried 'Me! Finish me!' More about them later.

Anyway, the ripple. 'Tis done and I am mighty pleased with it. The border was an afterthought when I was about halfway through but I always knew it would be green, blue and red.

Because the border was an afterthought, the corners are kindly sponsored by Messrs. Botch & Fudge. Allow me to show you the nicest of them...

The ripple-y ends were squared off with green, which was a bit fiddle-y (the squaring off, not the colour). I'll write up exactly how I did it in the next post. I found I needed a round of single crochet to add a bit more stability as the ripples were still trying to push through at the ends. I don't know if anyone has found this? Anyway, after the sc, there are two rows of my favourite granny clusters. I love this stitch. It gives you a nice, solid, straight edge which is perfect for the final round on a border. But as soon as you add another round, that nice solidity melts into rows of delicious diamonds. Look, here's what the blue row looked like when I'd finished it...

Very straight and square, no?  But look what happened to it when I added another round in the same stitch...

The blue looks like a different stitch altogether!

It feels a bit odd now that it's done. I've got that sense of being cast slightly adrift that you only get when you finish a big project. And this has been quite a biggy. 

I started it in mid-September and finished it last night, 12 January. So about 3.5-4 months in the making. I haven't been working on it exclusively though. There have been breaks while I worked on other stuff, and while I waited for more yarn to arrive. And it has been a bit yarn-hungry. I didn't keep count, but I did weigh it this morning. It weighs 2,165g which means that I've used 43.3 50g balls of cotton. 43.3!

The yarn I used was:

Pink - Freedom Sincere 615 Guava

Yellow - Freedom Sincere 616 Lemon

Blue - Freedom Sincere 608 Ocean

Red - Freedom Sincere 623 Strawberry

Green - Patons Eco Cotton 70 Lime

Alas, the green appears to be discontinued, but you could probably find a substitute from another producer. I think the lime in the Freedom Sincere range might be a bit dark, but I haven't seen it in the flesh, so don't take my word for it.

I daren't work out the cost. It's expensive stuff, eco cotton and thankfully most of it came from my stash which was stocked with bulk orders, discounted yarns and sale finds. My advice is to shop around: the price of a ball of Twilley's Freedom Sincere seems to vary between £2.60 ish and £3.20!

So there it is. Done. Finished. Which poor, half-made project shall I pick up next, I wonder?

It's my blanket. All mine. Not yours.