The Stash Busting Blanket crochet along.

It's Blogtober day 3 and the stash blanket crochet along has officially started!

I am so excited to see what you come up with. This crochet along is completely free to join and participate in. Something I hope you'll get out of it is the sense that you have developed your crochet skills, challenged yourself and made something beautiful that will keep you warm this winter. 

Your motivation to make a blanket might not be for yourself though. It might be for someone you love or someone you have yet to meet. It might be for someone you'll never meet, or someone you are saying goodbye to. We make blankets for different reasons but they're all good reasons. They bring us together. 

As winter is coming, it feels all the more important to see what we can do by shopping our own stash. Energy bills in the UK are extortionate right now and only set to rise. The cost of living here is creeping up and we're under pressure to give in and be cold and miserable as well as skint. Making a blanket won't stop any of the aforementioned from happening, but it's something mindful, meaningful, creative and warm that we can do this winter. 

I've received a lot of questions about this stash busting blanket CAL so I will clarify a few things here. 

• The CAL is free to enter and you can dip in and out whenever you like. 
• The main idea is to use up as much of your stash as you can. Buying extra yarn is perfectly fine if you need to do it. I will need to buy more for my border, as it's a large blanket. If you're just making a baby blanket or a lap blanket, you might not need as much. 
• We are using the hashtag #StashBlanketCAL on social media. This helps others to see your work and chat with you. 
• The CAL will take place on Twitter and Instagram with updates on the blog here. I'll post them using the hashtag. 
• There is no official pattern to follow. You can follow any blanket pattern that you like, or none at all. 
• You can do granny squares, C2C or stripes. There's no wrong way to do this! All we are focusing on is using as much of our yarn as possible. For me it's my aran stash. For you it could be your 4ply stash. 
• This is about being creative and making what you have stretch. Who knows how you'll feel when you see a few empty boxes or shelves in your stash cupboard or craft room. 

Need some stash busting blanket inspiration? 

Although the blankets featured in the posts below don't necessarily contain stash yarns or scrap yarns, you can get an idea of what you could do with them! 

Louise Tilbrook wrote about how "smitten" she is with the granny square blanket she finished in September. This blog post contains some really inspiring photos to get you going. Click here to see it. You may also have some chunky yarn that you can use. 

Here's an inspiring blog post about the Aria blanket from Attic24. With the sheer amount of colours involved in this one, you could really put the scrap yarns to use. Click here to view the post. I love how none of them match but they all compliment each other. 

Why not have a go of a stripe blanket? Even better- a chevron stripe blanket? This isn't as complicated as it seems. Chevrons are made using double crochet (UK treble) most of the time and it's just a case of clever placement of decreases and increases, like a feather and fan blanket in knitting. 

The full post from the Spruce Crafts is here  You can see how this kind of blanket would work with stash yarns as you could work 2 or 3 rows per colour depending on how much you have to use up! 

I think I need to follow a blanket pattern. What should I use?

Here are some really simple, straightforward patterns with squares or stripes. You might need a pattern to get you through and that's fine. There are some really inspiring ones here. 

Granny square baby blanket

 Gathered published a free granny square pattern for a baby blanket which uses a plethora of colours. It would therefore be ideal for smaller amounts of yarns. Here is the post. 

This blanket would absolutely work with leftovers. Imagine seeing how many squares you can get out of certain colours. It wouldn't matter which colours you use if you have a cream yarn for edges and the border. 

Simple granny square blanket from gathered. 

This simple granny square pattern uses larger squares, like what I'm making. This is in DK yarn and uses UK terms but it gives you the idea of what to do with the squares. Similar to the blankets above, a neutral shade would unify squares that don't necessarily match. 

Cosy stripe blanket 

This stripe blanket is a free pattern. There's a lot of scrolling, so bear with it but it might be similar to what you're looking for. Basically, a stripe blanket just requires you to work rows upon rows of crochet stitches. You can vary your stitches and have some single crochet rows, puff stitch rows or some v stitch rows. It works great for using leftovers as you could do a different type of stitch for each colour! 

You can see the pattern here. 

Still not sure? Just have a play around with granny squares. 

Before you embark on a blanket, you may just want to have a go at granny squares or basic stitches by themselves. There are several different types of granny squares and stitches for you to make stripes with. 

I offer a range of stitch and square tutorials on my youtube channel. You can have a look at them here. 

You can also catch the outlines and instructions of the 6 basic stitches in my beginner's crochet stitch guide here. 

I hope you can find the time to join in and make a start this October.