Hold on to your hats people! We are off on a space adventure! And our space ship of choice? A rocking chair of course! A chair that needs a space adventures crochet blanket. The chair in question is in the boys’ room. I have mixed memories. It is the chair that gave me excruciating back ache for the first week of Monster’s life, when he wouldn’t sleep unless he was held. But it is also the chair that I nursed both boys when they were babies. It is now the chair that I sit with Menace for quiet sleepy times when he wakes at night. We don’t have many quiet times together without Monster, so those are good (if sleepy) memories. And most importantly, it is the chair that we all pile on to drink milk and read bedtime stories. It’s going to be this chair for quite a while, so such an important chair deserves a beautiful hand-crafted blanket.
The poor chair has had several incarnations. Firstly (when there was a high chance of baby sick, wee and poo) it was covered by a very old and faded throw. As the boys became older this was replaced by quilts that I made, but none were designed for the purpose and all were too small. For several months it has had a commercial blanket draped over it, but this state of affairs clearly cannot last.
I wanted a crochet blanket (knitting would take me far too long). It needed to be washable, cheap and cheerful (Stylecraft Special DK here we come). Importantly, it would need to grow with the boys. Monster and I decided on a space adventure theme. We found many space related things from around the house and piled them up together for palette inspiration. We settled on a selection of cool blues, with rocket-fire inspired brights. You can find more information on the colour choices on the pattern page.
A simple granny stripe seemed ideal for this blanket. Something about the interlocking blocks made me think about the pixelated classic space invaders game.
This was a very quick crochet, a perfect keep-your-hands-busy-whilst-TV-binging project. I think Menace loved it too. Every time I brought it out to crochet he would come over, sit on it and start wrapping himself up. His habit of choosing the part of the blanket nearest to where I was working made for some interesting crochet positions in order to keep going.
It is now finished and residing on the very important chair. I’m really pleased with it. Although, if you look closely at the photo towards the edge of the seat you will see a dubious colour stripe decision. In my head I pictured stars swirling around a black hole, but in actuality? Its more reminiscent of a galactic bumble bee.
