Gemma 
While I was watching the Olympics this year, I was working on a big project: the Grace Blanket. This is a double bed-sized crochet blanket, which is mainly composed of granny square-style elements. The pattern is by Anita Gibney and is available as a free digital download on www.madebyanita.co.uk (though you can also purchase a hard copy of it from the website, if you prefer).
It was actually my mum who found this pattern and fell in love with it, but, because she’s not a big crocheter, she asked me to make it for her. Because I am a big crocheter- I readily agreed! It was perfect timing as well, because we ordered the yarn just before the Olympics began, so I was able to start making this blanket while watching the Opening Ceremony on 26th July 2024. Because I basically watched the games 24/7 while they were on, I had a lot of time to spend working on this project. In fact, as time went on, I got more and more hopeful that I’d get it all finished by the end of the Closing Ceremony on 11th August 2024, but, alas, it was not meant to be (read: I had to stop crocheting to take a nap). Instead, after 19 days of pretty hardcore crochet, I finished this blanket on 13th August 2024 (only 2 days off my target, though!). Still, to me, this blanket will forever be my Paris Olympics Blanket.
Table of Contents
- The Yarn
- The Starbursts
- Crocheting the Squares Together
- The Granny Rounds
- The Mini Grannies
- The Picot Edging
- Final Thoughts
The Yarn
I used the exact yarn specified by the pattern for my blanket, because a big part of what drew my mum to this blanket was the colours. The pattern calls for 19 balls of Wendy Supreme DK, which is an acrylic yarn that I’d actually never heard of before! If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know that I’m very loyal to my beloved Stylecraft Special DK, so I was tempted to get similar colours in the Stylecraft and use that instead. However, I was a bit worried that the shades wouldn’t be perfect matches. I also figured that this could be a nice way of getting out of my comfort zone (in the gentlest of ways) and testing out some other yarn, so I opted to use the Wendy Supreme DK.
Wendy Supreme DK: Mini Review
After using the yarn to make this blanket, I thought I’d share a few quick thoughts on it (and talk about how it measures up to my beloved Stylecraft)!
- The Wendy Supreme DK is pretty soft, but ever so slightly ‘squeaky’…? It also felt a little rougher than the Stylecraft– I actually gave myself yarn burn at one point (but that could very well have been due to the excessive amount of crochet I was doing on a daily basis…)! It definitely feels more like acrylic to me than the Stylecraft, but not so much that I couldn’t be tempted to use it again.
- The Wendy Supreme DK is significantly more ‘splitty’ than the Stylecraft. It’s not unmanageable, but it was definitely noticeable as I worked with it.
- The colour of the Wendy Supreme DK was really nice and even, much like the Stylecraft shades. No complaints on that front!
- In all 18 balls of the Wendy Supreme DK (that I used), there was not a single knot, which made me very happy (because, you know, fewer ends to sew in). Big win for Wendy (though, having said that, I don’t often find knots in the Stylecraft yarn either…)!
- This might just be because I was working with so much cream yarn, but I did feel that the Wendy Supreme DK was a tiny bit… sheddier… than the Stylecraft? I made the mistake of wearing black trousers for a couple of the days and it was definitely giving me white-dog-fur-curse vibes.
- The Wendy Supreme DK is slightly cheaper than the Stylecraft (£1.99 vs £2.35, respectively), which is good to know if you’re looking for a slightly more affordable option.
Overall, the Wendy Supreme DK was a perfectly pleasant yarn, but I don’t think I enjoyed using it quite enough for it to usurp the Stylecraft Special DK as my all-time favourite. It was a fun experiment though! Just for fun, I did take out my (beloved) Stylecraft yarn pegs to see if I could find the closest shades and managed to find some pretty good (but not quite exact) matches:
- Cream WD02 (Wendy Supreme DK) – Cream 1005 (Stylecraft Special DK)
- Duck Egg WD28 (Wendy Supreme DK) – Duck Egg 1820 (Stylecraft Special DK)
- Rose WD09 (Wendy Supreme DK) – Pale Rose 1080 (Stylecraft Special DK)
- Soft Peach WD52 (Wendy Supreme DK) – Soft Peach 1240 (Stylecraft Special DK)
- Natural WD17 (Wendy Supreme DK) – Parchment 1218 (Stylecraft Special DK)
In general, I would say these Stylecraft alternatives are ever so slightly lighter than their Wendy counterparts, but the tones are pretty spot on (aside from Soft Peach, which is also slightly brighter and pinker than its corresponding Wendy shade).
Buying the Yarn
You can actually buy a full yarn pack for this particular pattern from Black Sheep Wools, for £36.99. However, I had a discount code for Wool Warehouse (which is my usual go-to for wool purchases) and it actually worked out slightly cheaper to buy the balls individually from there, so that’s what I did (oh, she’s thrifty).
The blanket calls for:
- 2x100g balls of Rose, Soft Peach and Natural.
- 3x100g balls of Duck Egg.
- 10x100g balls of Cream.
However, I did have a bit of yarn leftover- particularly of the cream shade. I could definitely have gotten away with buying one fewer ball of cream, because I had just under 2 balls left by the end. Having said that, I am a pretty tight crocheter, so that might be why?
The Starbursts
The first step of the blanket is to make the central starbursts. I’ve never actually made starbursts like these before, though I have seen them frequently on social media, so I was excited to give them a try myself! They were super simple to make, but I did make a commitment to myself that I would sew in all of the ends as I went along (blegh). It was a bit of a drag at the time, but I was so relieved not to have thousands of ends to sew in at the end of the process, so I guess it was for the best.
The pattern provides colour charts for all of the starbursts, because the colour choices are intentionally random and don’t follow much of a pattern. Unfortunately, the colour chart isn’t colour-coded- I can completely understand why this is the case, because if you were following the pattern using different colours, it would be tricky to follow, but ohhhhhh… I struggled. Ultimately, I just colour coded the chart myself on my computer, which wasn’t too tricky for the first lot of starbursts, at least.
For the second lot of starbursts, the colour chart is arranged a little differently, so I ended up just making a separate spreadsheet and using the ‘conditional highlighting’ feature to quickly colour code it. I’m not too mad about that, though… I love a spreadsheet.
Crocheting the Squares Together
I’ve done a lot of crochet in my life, but, surprisingly, I’ve never actually crocheted granny squares together using the join-as-you-go method. I know- crazy right?! It took a little bit of time to get my head around it, but I got into a rhythm pretty quickly and, actually, those rounds always seemed to fly by!
The instructions were super detailed for the first couple of times, but I would have loved a slightly more detailed explanation for the joining of the second round of starbursts- the pattern (completely reasonably, I have to say) just says to follow the previous instructions, but I felt that this round was a little different from the previous two joining rounds (almost a combination of the two?), so I would have liked a recap at this point (if just to save me from having to scroll back and forth between the other two instructions- especially seeing as you have to keep an eye on the colour chart at this point, too!).
I admit, I was a bit worried about how smooth the joins would be using this join-as-you-go method, and, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised! I felt the method was really good for the bigger starbursts, but maybe not quite so smooth for the mini granny squares? My mini granny rounds are just a little bit bumpier around the joins than I would have liked, but perhaps that will smooth itself out in the wash…?
The Granny Rounds
The granny rounds really brought me back to my early crochet days and I really loved having the blue rows every now and then to break things up. The initial, photographic instructions for the granny sections were super clear and worked really well- though I do think that after that first set of instructions, the directions for the setup rows aren’t quite so clear (I feel there’s a couple of treble crochet instructions missing when joining the squares?). That doesn’t really matter though, seeing as the detailed instructions are right there at the start of the pattern anyway.
The Mini Grannies
Ah, we get to the part of this blanket that nearly, nearly got me. The mini grannies.
I opted to make all of the mini granny centres for the first round to start with, sewing in the starting ends after making all of the centres for a particular colour, so that I could work the joining round continuously. Honestly, I would still do it this way if I were to make this blanket again, but, my goodness, when I had to make 152 of the things for the second mini granny round, I really had to force myself to stay strong. I survived though! Big win for Gemma At Home.
I wasn’t crazy about the crocheting over the end technique used for these mini squares. On the one hand, I hate sewing in ends, so it should have been right up my alley, but I just feel like it’s not the… neatest? The pattern assures me it’s super secure, but I’ve already had a few little ends poking out… Maybe I did it wrong? Plus, you still have to sew in half of the ends, so I guess I’m wondering if it’s really worth it?
The Picot Edging
The joy I felt when I got to the picot edging- I can’t even tell you. Not because I struggled with this project, or didn’t enjoy it- I actually loved the process of this (except the mini grannies. Screw you, mini grannies.)! You know that feeling, though, when you know you’re going to finish a project that day? I had that. Also, I knew I only had about 6 ends left to sew in at this point, so I didn’t have the impending doom of thousands of ends waiting to be darned in, staring up at me from the depths of hell. Thank you for that, past Gemma. Your sacrifice is very much appreciated.
I don’t know why, but I found it so hard to get into a rhythm with this edging! I think because I was so used to doing treble crochets by this point, working double crochets and chains just threw me off. I had to keep checking to make sure I was actually doing it right, so it took me a bit longer than it should have. I also added an extra dc at the end of the round, alongside the first cluster, because I just felt it looked a bit uneven compared to the rest of the picots, but that was just a tiny, spur-of-the-moment thing.
To be honest, I’m not usually crazy about picot edgings on blankets (or borders, in general, really), but I actually really like this one??? The blanket pattern, admittedly, is not overly modern-looking, so maybe it just fits the vibe, but I think the picot edging really finishes this blanket off. I’m super happy with how it turned out!
Final Thoughts
So, after 19 days, 17 of those spent non-stop watching the Paris 2024 Olympics (including 2 pretty early mornings to watch the Triathlon events), 1 ominous case of yarn-burn, 5 padded plasters on top of said case of yarn-burn (so that I could continue crocheting through the pain), 18 balls of yarn, 232 cursed mini grannies, thousands of ends and, surprisingly, only 2 naps, my Grace Blanket was finished. I’m so proud of this one- I love that I’ll forever associate it with the Olympics, but also that I didn’t let myself get scared off by the idea of all. those. ends. (and that I darned them in as I went along which was… groundbreaking for me).
What do you think? Would you ever make a Grace Blanket for yourself? It’s such a clear and easy-to-follow pattern, I think it’s a great project for beginners and hardcore crocheters alike!
If you're interested...
You can download the Grace Blanket pattern here.
You can find the original pattern page on Ravelry for the Grace Blanket here.
You can find my Grace Blanket project page on Ravelry here.
Gemma
xxx
