Sacred Space
Welcome to the very beginning of my journey through the delightful 9 part blanket CAL by Helen Shrimpton: Sacred Space. Follow my blog posts to find out how I get on...
Part one is an ambitious start and has 30 rounds to get you started including a wide range of ruffles and clusters that you would expect from one of Helen's beautiful designs. The effects of part one are simply stunning, there is such a wide range of varied stitches all linked together although it’s worth taking your time to get the counts and stitches right, there was a fair bit of frogging going on where I realised I hadn’t worked quite what was asked for in the pattern. Oops!
The nitty-gritty of part one sets up the centre of the blanket and creates a stitch-packed focal point for the entire blanket using the full range of colours in each colour way. The final blanket is a square with four straight edges but part 1 builds a circle in rounds of crochet all creating texture and depth.
The rounds start small and work up quickly – the estimated time for part one is a week, but I managed to finish it in about 2 days...in honesty, I hardly put it down so it may take a while longer if you don’t have the time to get stuck into it as I did over Christmas, a few films and many, many mince pies...
There are two colour ways recommended by Helen for this blanket and I picked 'Sacred Love' which is a combination of pinks and teal. The alternative is called 'Sacred Balance' which is a soft rainbow mix of colours. Both colour ways are supported by Stylecraft yarns that have created yarn packs and are widely available. I got mine as a Christmas present from Woolwarehouse.
There is so much support for this part and all other parts with the pattern available in multi languages, both written and photo pattern options. I didn’t need to ask any questions for the first part, I found the instructions to be quite self explanatory, but if you need extra advice or support, there is a helpful Facebook group for all of Helen's patterns called Helen’s Hookaholics where you can get involved with others wips and ask any questions you may have.
I can already tell form this first section that it’s going to be an extremely addictive pattern!!
Part 2 update coming soon...