HAPPY BRIDGERTON SEASON 3 (PART 1) RELEASE DAY!!!!!!

Phew, now that’s out the way- it’s time to celebrate! Bridgerton Watch Party Week may be over, but, evidently, my thoughts of the show never end. This post is the first in another Bridgerton-inspired series, which will be coming out in weekly instalments (interspersed with other, non-Bridgerton posts, though- so please don’t be put off if Bridgerton isn’t really your thing!). Over the next 5 weeks, I’ll be sharing my new, original (and free!) crochet pattern, inspired by Bridgerton. This is my…

🌸🧱BRIDGERTON HOUSE BABY BLANKET🧱🌸

This pattern has been 2 whole years in the making (yep, you read that right. Can you tell I’m somewhat of a perfectionist?). One of the things I love most about Bridgerton is the aesthetic- the effort and thought that goes into the costuming, the settings and the symbolism just makes my heart so happy. This pattern is a direct consequence of that love- it’s me, letting myself be inspired by something that genuinely brings me joy and creating something I’m truly, truly proud of. I can’t wait to share it with you.

In this post, I’ll be introducing you to the blanket and giving you a little bit of backstory on the design process, as well as a roadmap for how the rollout of this pattern will look. I’ve decided to split the pattern up into several posts, to ensure that I can give all of the elements enough attention and consideration (without overwhelming everyone with an insanely long post). Once all of the parts are out, I’ll release the pattern on Ravelry, so that you can save it/link your own projects to it more easily!

Also: this blanket is actually a super versatile pattern- even if you’re not a die-hard Bridgerton fan like me, you can still use the basic brick blanket pattern as a basis for all manner of projects and baby blankets. The possibilities are endless!

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• The Design Process
• Trialling Techniques
  • The Brick Blanket
  • The Flowers
  • The Vines
• Putting It All Together
• Master Material List
• Pattern Release Roadmap

Inspiration

As I’m sure you can tell from the name, this blanket is inspired by Bridgerton House, one of the buildings in the show and, unsurprisingly, the home of the titular family. Its deep, red brick stands out among the other, more neutral, stone buildings of the ‘ton’, and purple wisteria runs along the facade. The front courtyard is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, which is decorated with rose bushes that add little splashes of pink, here and there. The building itself is actually Ranger’s House, in London- though, in real life (sadly), the wisteria and roses are nowhere to be seen.

For the blanket, I opted to include three of the most iconic elements of the house: the red bricks, the purple wisteria and the pink roses. One of the most interesting things about Bridgerton is how it blends the regency and modern eras, so I really wanted the blanket to reflect that dichotomy- to seem ornate and opulent, but also simple and elegant- almost minimal.

The Design Process

I first started dreaming about this blanket when I was struggling through some withdrawal symptoms after finishing Season 2. I have a little book where I jot down little notes or sketches of ideas I have for crochet projects and I drew this (super precise and accurate) sketch in the throes of my Bridgerton-induced fever:

I spent a bit of time muddling around with the general concept- trying out different arrangements, designs and elements that I could try to incorporate, until I had a clearer idea of what I really wanted to achieve with this blanket. I then created a slightly more detailed sketch on Procreate, which is an iPad drawing app:

I ended up with this design, which I think really encompassed everything I had hoped to achieve- the blanket itself is fairly simple and minimal, but the flowers and twisting branches add that sense of over-the-top, floral opulence.

Sketching my design like this also meant that I could easily try out different arrangements of the elements- I wanted the wisteria to be pointing downwards (because, you know, gravity), but I also wanted it to go right around the perimeter of the blanket. By fiddling around with my sketch on Procreate, I could try out different options super easily, until I finally came to this half-and-half design, where the top half of the blanket is always pointing downwards. I did end up deviating from the design ever so slightly, here and there, by adding wisteria leaves and positioning the roses in clusters, but, otherwise, I stayed pretty true to my original idea!

Trialling Techniques

Ah, finally. We come to the bit of this project that took me the longest (most of the 2 years, to be exact). Trialling the techniques to work out the pattern for this blanket- to turn my sketch into a reality!

The Brick Blanket

I decided pretty early on that I would create the brick blanket first, then crochet some wisteria and rose embellishments separately to appliqué onto that blanket. Truthfully, I expected the flowers to be the trickiest part of this, but, no, no- it was the bricks!

I started by deciding on what stitch to use for the bricks. I wanted something that had a little bit of texture (because bricks are not perfectly smooth), but also something that looked professional and neat. After a lot of sampling, I settled on using linen stitch (sometimes called moss stitch), which produces a lovely texture and feel- it’s soft, squishy and looks really neat. It’s also super easy to work up, so you can really get into a mindless, crochet rhythm (my favourite thing).

Initially, I had planned to make the bricks separately and crochet them together with a darker yarn (acting as the ‘mortar’) but, ultimately, I just wasn’t happy with the end result. I desperately wanted to leave the edges of the blanket as they were, without a border, for a more minimal, modern vibe, but the edges weren’t smooth enough for that. I tried so many things to get around this, but it just wasn’t working for me, so I had to go back to the drawing board. Eventually, I worked out a way, using colourwork techniques, to make the whole blanket in one piece, bricks and mortar together, which gave perfectly straight, neat sides. It was so perfect (and so much easier), I almost couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it in the first place! Not only does this method make for much neater edges, it also drastically reduces the amount of sewing required for this blanket (which is a huge win, by my standards!).

The Flowers

As I mentioned, I was pretty sure that developing the patterns for the flowers would be a tricky undertaking. Truthfully, it was a challenge, but, after the whole brick saga, it honestly felt pretty straightforward! After (quite a lot) of samples and lots of trialling different hook sizes and petal numbers and colour combinations, I ended up with two different sizes of both the wisteria fronds and the roses. Admittedly, the wisteria isn’t anywhere near anatomically correct (my apologies to all of the botanists and wisteria-worshippers out there), but I think it still gives a pretty good impression of it!

I did also want to include some greenery here and there, so I moved on to trying to create some leaves for each of my flowers. Again, this took a bit of trial and error- the rose leaves were pretty straight forward, but the wisteria leaves took a bit more work. In the end, I worked out a way to crochet the whole wisteria flower, leaves and all, as one piece, which makes sewing the blanket together that little bit easier (a big win)! The rose leaves, on the other hand, did have to be made separately, but I suppose you can’t win them all.

The Vines

Another thing I had to figure out was how to make the vines (is it accurate to call these vines? Or is that just for grapes? Gah- my plant knowledge is severely lacking)- I wanted to include both the woody, twisty, branches of the wisteria plants and the green stems of the roses weaving all around the perimeter of the blanket . After some research (and more testing), I opted to use a technique called surface crochet for this. This is a great technique that produces a similar result to the embroidery technique ‘chain stitch’, but you can use yarn straight from the ball, instead of having to cut a certain length (and recut, when you inevitably either run out or get into a major tangle).

To add even more dimension, I opted to crochet into the surface crochet for my wisteria branches. This allowed me to make the branches thicker, providing some differentiation between the two ‘vines’, and to add some texture to the branches, to make them a little bit more realistic (though I do, of course, use that term very loosely).

Putting It All Together

After months of testing, trialling and researching, I was finally ready to make my blanket. It came out… perfectly. As in, I was kind of amazed at how similar it looks to my design- I’m SO proud of it! Usually with crafting, you’ll have an idea in your head of how something will look and it will turn out completely different- not bad, just different. This blanket looks exactly like the design I had in my head and I’m still kind of baffled by that. Honestly though, for 2 years of work, it probably should, so I won’t complain.

All in all, the final blanket measures approximately 90cm x 65cm. I designed it as a baby blanket, but you could use it as a lap blanket, or perhaps even a wall hanging (if that’s your vibe), instead.

Master Material List

While I will include a list of everything you need to make each stage of the Bridgerton House Blanket in their individual posts, I wanted to include a master post of materials and notions here as well.

To make this blanket, you will need:

• 4x100g balls Stylecraft Highland Heathers DK in the shade Marmalade.
• 1x100g ball of Stylecraft Special DK in the shade Walnut.
• Small amounts of Stylecraft Special DK in the shades: Khaki, Mocha, Pale Rose, Parma Violet, Pistachio, Powder Pink, Raspberry and Wisteria.*
• Crochet hooks (2.0mm, 2.5mm, 3.0mm, 3.5mm, 4.0mm, 5.0mm).**
• 5x yarn bobbins.
• Darning needle.
• Scissors.

For this blanket, I’ve used Stylecraft yarn. Stylecraft is always my (acrylic) yarn of choice- it’s so soft and easy to work with, plus it comes in a great range of colours! You can use a different DK weight yarn, if you prefer, though, for all of the embellishments. I would recommend using the Stylecraft Highland Heathers (specifically in the shade Marmalade) for the main blanket though, because it is the perfect brick-red shade and quite a unique yarn!

* In the interest of being as informative as possible, I did actually work out exactly how much of each of each colour you’ll need for this project, so you can work out if any scraps you may have lying around are large enough. If you are a little under the listed quantities, I would recommend seeing how far you can get with what you have, before buying another ball. Because each element is so small, you don’t need to worry about dye lots/changing colours, so you can always buy more yarn later on, if needed!

** I can only apologise for the ridiculous number of different hook sizes- a number of the elements require multiple different sizes in order to come together properly, so it just kind of happened. I have this set of crochet hooks, which includes every hook size needed for this project. The hooks themselves are really good quality (and ergonomic!), so it’s a great option for this project (or just, you know, in general).

Pattern Release Roadmap

Finally, then, after 2 whole years, this pattern is ready to be shared! As I mentioned, I’ll be releasing it in weekly instalments. I’ll be coming back to this ‘master post’ as each instalments is released, to link in the new posts and make it super easy for you to find all of the sections). Without further ado, though, here’s the roadmap (along with some little sneak peaks of what each post will encompass), so that you can stay in the loop:

• Week 1: Making the Brick Blanket

Linen stitch, main blanket pattern & colourwork using yarn bobbins.

• Week 2: Using Surface Crochet to Add the Vines

Surface crochet, working into surface crochet & interlacing surface crochet paths.

• Week 3: Making the Rose Pieces

Making large and small roses, working with a fine hook & making rose leaves.

• Week 4: Making the Wisteria Pieces

Crocheting a spiral of petals around a central chain & making attached leaves.

• Week 5: Assembly

Positioning, sewing on the elements & child safety tips.

And that’s it! As I mentioned, once all 5 instalments have been released, I will be creating a pattern page for this project on Ravelry, so that you can save it for later, or link your own projects to it.

UPDATE: 

This pattern is now on Ravelry! You can find it here.

I hope you’re as excited as I am for the next 5 weeks- I’ll see you back here soon!

Gemma

xxx

My theme for this month is, of course, Bridgerton (I swear, I swear, there will be some non-Bridgerton-themed posts coming SOON… alongside a couple more Bridgerton-themed ones (#sorrynotsorry)…). With Season 3 coming out this month (in 6 days, to be precise!), I didn’t really have a choice in the matter- I just had to honour the occasion with a bullet journal theme. I did actually do a Bridgerton theme for my May setup last year, as well, but I’ve gone for a very different vibe/colour scheme this time around, so it doesn’t feel too similar!

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine
• Weeklies
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
  • Week 5
• May Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

As I mentioned, my theme for this month was Bridgerton– specifically, Bridgerton Season 3, the first half of which is set to be released on 16th May. I wanted to go in a completely different direction to my previous Bridgerton-themed bullet journal setup, so I really tried to focus on some of the themes and colours associated with the upcoming series.

Firstly, I went for a dark green and gold colour scheme. This was inspired by the new logo that the Bridgerton social media accounts have been using, in honour of the upcoming season. I opted to use POSCA Paint Pens for this, to get deep, opaque colours without risk of bleeding or ghosting. It did mean my spreads took a little bit longer to create, because I had to wait for each layer of paint to dry (and the pages did curl up a little bit, too), but, all in all, I think it’s made for a really successful setup.

I also took inspiration from several other themes/symbols from the show. These include:

• Wallflowers

The tagline for the upcoming season of the show is ‘Even a wallflower can bloom‘, which, of course, refers to the leading lady of Bridgerton Season 3 (and OG wallflower): Penelope Featherington. It’s clear that the concept of the wallflower will be integral to the plot of the upcoming season, so I really wanted to incorporate it into my setup somehow. In the end, I opted to create these green ‘brick wall’ backgrounds, then layered over some golden flower doodles, as if they were ‘growing’ up the walls.

• Mirrors

The so-called ‘mirror scene’ from the books has been all any Bridgerton fan can talk about in the run-up to this new season, so the mirror has, of course, become an iconic symbol that has been used throughout the promotional content. Because of this, I wanted to incorporate some mirrors into my setup, so I gave drawing a couple of ornate, golden mirrors a go!

• Bees

Bees are a running motif throughout the Bridgerton series, so it felt only right to include them in my setup. Every now and then, I’ve included a little, golden, bee doodle as a nod to that.

• Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers

The gossipmonger Lady Whistledown is a central character throughout the series, but will (for obvious reasons, if you’ve seen the first two series) really come to the forefront in the upcoming season. While I do have a whole page inspired by the iconic scandal sheets, I also reused the decorative border from those sheets in my weekly setups, to link my spreads together and give Lady Whistledown the recognition she deserves!

Equipment

Despite being quite an involved, ornate setup, I kept the equipment that I used for this setup fairly minimal:

• POSCA PC-5M Paint Pen, English Green.
• POSCA PC-3M Paint Pen, Gold.
• Sakura Pigma Micron, black (sizes: 01, 05, 08, 10 and Graphic 1- I bought mine in this pack).
• Ruler.
• Scissors.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover + Quote Page

For my Cover Page, I really ran with the wallflower design and created a whole page of bricks and golden flowers. I put the ‘May’ heading in the centre of the page, written in a block capital font (as my little nod to the classic, minimal font used in the show).

For my Quote Page, I created a green and gold border, then drew an ornate hand mirror in the centre of the page, using my gold pen. Inside the mirror, I wrote ‘Dearest Gentlereader’ (though I could not for the life of me decide whether it should be Gentlereader (one word) or Gentle Reader (two words)- everywhere online seems to use two words, but surely if it’s a play on gentlemen, it should just be one?! I just don’t know). To further decorate the page, I added my first little bee doodle, along with some swirly corner frames, inspired by the promotional content for Bridgerton Season 3.

Monthly Calendar

As always, I like to use a double-page spread for my Monthly Calendar, because I like to have plenty of space to write in any events/notes. For this spread, I used that same wallflower-inspired background, but, instead of doodling the wallflowers randomly across the background, I drew the flowers around the calendar grid. I placed the ‘May’ header in the top left, using the same, golden block capital font, and added another bee doodle in the bottom right.

Also, let’s absolutely not discuss the fact that I just… completely missed off 1st May in my calendar…? I have no idea how it happened, but I truly did not even notice until I was writing in the dates after I’d decorated the whole spread. Whole thing. Luckily, because I’m so late with my journal this month, it won’t affect me anyway!

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

Another spread that uses my wallflower-inspired background, my Blog Planning page has 4 boxes down the left-hand side, for any quick notes on my upcoming posts. I have also included a larger, more detailed box for a super fun, upcoming project I have planned, so keep your eyes peeled for that one! To keep a sense of ✨mystery✨, I haven’t added the subheading for this section yet, but I will be writing that in with a black fineliner.

For my Daily Sunshine page, I opted to forgo the wallflower background and instead tried my best to replicate the design of the Lady Whistledown scandal sheet, as seen in the show, using just my Sakura Pigma Micron pens. The layout does mean that I’ll have limited space to note down my happy memories from this month, but I think it’s worth it (I can always write super small, anyway!).

Weeklies

I typically use tabs to separate out my Weekly Spreads, but, recently, I’ve been experimenting a little with different methods/styles of doing this. Back in January, I tried out waterfall-style tabs, where you cut away the whole edge of each page, increasing the width of the pages as you go to get a staggered effect. I decided to do something similar for this setup, but I alternated between wavy floral and straight dark green edges, to achieve a pretty, striped effect. So that my spreads looked fully-decorated no matter what page I was on, I decorated the left-hand side of the first page with more of my green brick pattern.

Although I varied the orientation of each of my Weekly Spreads, I tried to keep the style/decorative features quite consistent throughout. In general, I used the same Lady Whistledown border that I used on my Daily Sunshine spread to section up the pages, wrote the subheadings in black script and highlighted them with a line of gold, then used the same font/style for the green and gold headings (except for the first page, where I accidentally drew an extra box… oh well).

Week 1

The first 5 days of May run from Wednesday-Sunday, so I only needed 5 daily task list spaces on this spread. I used the remaining space for my task list/heading.

Week 2

I think this might be my favourite layout from all of this month’s weeklies: 4 vertical boxes along the top, 4 along the bottom and the heading right across the middle.

Week 3

For this spread, I split the right-hand page into 6 sections (a 3×2 grid). I then used the bottom of the left-hand page for the remaining daily task list and the rest of the space for the heading/task list.

Week 4

For my fourth weekly, I put the heading along the top and split the remaining space into 8 (one 2×2 grid on each page).

Week 5

As usual, with my final weekly, I like to include all the days from Monday-Sunday, regardless of whether they fall in the right month or not, just to help me visualise the whole week. To set up this spread, I divided each page in two horizontally, then used vertical boxes for the days in May and horizontal boxes for the days in June, to distinguish between them. I also included a (slightly wider) task box.

May Review

For my May Review page, I’ve included all my standard sections: places to list out the ATP & WTA Top 10, to write out my top memory for the month, to note down my top 6 songs from the month and, finally, to stick in a polaroid picture. As always, I’ve placed the polaroid section on the right-hand page, along with the header, then fit the other sections into the left-hand page.

To decorate the left-hand page, I went back to my brick background (minus the wallflowers, because a) there wasn’t enough room and b) my wallflower tab gave enough floral decoration for me!). I decided to make a ‘frame’ for the polaroid this month (for the first time in a long time) and tried to mimic an ornate, rectangular mirror with my gold pen, by using lots of swirly details. Admittedly, this could just be a picture frame, but I’ll know that it’s meant to be a mirror, so I’m happy. To finish off the spread, I added two, final, little bee doodles.

Final Thoughts

This setup brought a lot of firsts for me: it was my first time using a dramatic colour scheme like this, my first time using paint pens and my first time (attempting to) draw mirrors! Overall, I’m really happy with how it turned out- it’s a very different style for me, but it’s exactly the kind of opulent, Bridgerton-y, #polin vibe I was going for!

When it comes to the paint pens, I was really happy with how they worked here. I didn’t get any bleeding or ghosting (minus one tiny patch on one of my weeklies) and the colour is pretty opaque. I did find it could be a little patchy if I didn’t press the nib down frequently enough, but I think that’s a case of user error. It was a little bit tedious having to wait for each layer of paint to dry on each page, which is part of the reason this setup took me so long to create, but honestly, it was so worth it. If I had created this setup with regular markers/gold ink pens, the colour would absolutely have transferred to the opposite pages while I was setting it up, which I feel would have ruined the effect. Long story short, it required a little extra time and effort, but the end result was better for it!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my May 2024, Bridgerton Season 3-inspired Bullet Journal setup! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments- including whether or not you’ll be watching the new season of Bridgerton on 16th May!

Gemma

xxx