bella coco Archives - Meagan Made

Last week I saw Aladdin the stage production here in Sydney and it was amazing! I was so inspired by the visual fair that I decided to put together an Aladdin C2C blanket based on the colour scheme of the production.

Somehow, in person the colours seemed even brighter and more spectacular, and the voice of each of the actors was amazing. For me, as in the movie, the genie absolutely stole the show.

I chose the colours for this blanket from my stash, and even though the wool is 100% acrylic, it works up lovely and soft. I picked the wool up at Spotlight for smaller amigurumi projects but they’ve come in handy for this blanket.

Aladdin Blanket - Colour choices | MeaganMade.com

I’ve been seeing a lot of C2C (Corner to corner) blankets on a crochet group that I belong to on Facebook and thought it was about time that I give this technique a go. I was amazed at how quickly it started to come together, but had to stop because my wrist started to get sore. The colour order that I’m working on is:

Red
Purple
Light blue
Dark blue
Yellow
Light green
Orange
Magenta

Aladdin Blanket - Part 1 | MeaganMade.com

I’m partway through the yellow row at the moment and I need to sew in the ends, but I’m enjoying the process so far. Other than the order of colours, I didn’t do too much planning. I’d like to make the blanket a lap size for the lounge, so I’ll have to judge the size as I go, but think I’ll end up with a few repeats of the set of colours.

Aladdin Blanket - Part 1 | MeaganMade.com Take a look at Bella Coco’s tutorial on YouTube if you’d like to learn this technique! I always find her videos easy to follow, but this video is the simplest that I’ve found to date. If you can make Granny Squares you shouldn’t have any issues with the C2C technique.

I’ll keep you guys posted with my progress on this blanket, and will post updates to my Instagram account too, so make sure you’re following me!

Happy crocheting,
Meagan x

As I mentioned back on my Amigurumi Turtle post, I’ve been crocheting since February last year, and the very first technique that I learnt was the traditional granny square. I decided that I should make myself a blanket, and thought that I could finish it by winter, no problem! Heh, I think I may have underestimated the task!

My wonderful friend, Maxine, was extremely patient and taught me the basics of how to crochet a granny square, and then to make it all sink in once I got home, I watched (and re-watched quite a few times) Bella Coco’s video tutorial. I refer back to her written instructions whenever I need a refresher and find them very easy to follow. I’ve learnt to crochet in UK English terms, which are slightly different to the US English crochet terms, but I’ve also managed to learn how to translate between the two!

As I do, I got very excited after finding out I could crochet a granny square, and went straight onto Pinterest and found this amazing blanket that was pinned! (The website the pin links to no longer seems to work, but the picture is there.) It was perfect, combining my loves of quilting and crochet, and it had quite the modern look to it too!

Unfortunately there was no pattern, but I used it as inspiration to start designing my own pattern for a “Crochet Quilt”. Living in Australia, we don’t have as many yarn brand options, but I kept reading about how soft (and affordable) the Stylecraft Special DK yarn was, so I chose my colours from the amazing colour range on LoveCrochet and saved colour swatches for each of the colours. I am a little obsessed with purple, but decided to balance it out with some pinks, turquoise and greys, resulting in these beautiful colours (although the bright pink, Fiesta, is displaying as much brighter than it seems in real life):

Crochet Quilt colours — From L to R, Top to bottom: Aspen, Petrol, Fiesta, Grey, Plum, Magenta, Fondant and Silver

I decided that while I could colour in a piece of paper, I wanted to be able to use the colour swatches to get a much better idea of how it would all look once I pulled it all together. After much investigation, I purchased the Quiltography iPad app, which was fantastic to use, and imported my colour swatches and started playing with layout. This is what I came up with:

Crochet Quilt pattern

If you live in Australia, you’ll most likely have noticed that we’ve already passed one winter and we’re about to hit another, and I’m only a little over a third of the way through my crochet quilt! I started working on it last May but since it’s a project for myself I keep putting it off to one side so that I can get other projects with tighter deadlines, like birthdays, finished.

Each square is five rounds in size, and on a good night I can get one square done in about 45 minutes, so I’m normally able to do one after dinner, or sometimes on the bus (if I’m not working on another project). I thought that I’d post some progress shots on here so that I have a bit more accountability, and hopefully I’ll get it done this year, so feel free to comment away and ask how I’m going with it! This is where I’m at now, but I’ll keep on working at it…

Crochet Quilt progress shot

I’ve committed the cardinal crochet sin of not sewing in my ends as I go, and I still need to attach the squares, but I think it’s coming together quite well!

Happy crocheting,

Meagan x

Tag: bella coco

Aladdin C2C Blanket – Part 1

Crochet Quilt – Part 1