Catherine's Crochet Corner

I love December. I love Advent, actually, to be more precise. I love prepping for Christmas – baking, making, plotting and planning. I love decorating, I love putting lights up, I love writing Christmas cards and deciding what goodies to bake on any given day.

This year, for obvious reasons, things are looking rather different! In fact I haven’t even got the Christmas boxes out of the loft yet. I do plan to put a few decorations up, but I’m definitely not going the whole hog. I’m not even going to bring in my (living) Christmas tree from the garden. The place I put it last year is currently occupied by a nappy station, and I haven’t worked out an alternative! And as for baking – well, I got the Christmas cake made, so I’ll get that decorated, and I’m managing to get mince pies baked, because shop bought mince pies are really not my thing (home made all the way, pastry and mincemeat both), but I doubt I’ll do much of anything else.

And since my brother isn’t coming this year until Boxing Day, we’re going to have a lovely quiet Christmas, Little Miss and I. I plan to lay in a stock of party food – ‘picky bits’, as my brother calls them! – and not even bother about cooking. A nice bottle of non-alcoholic fizz, a stack of chocolate, and some Christmas films to watch.

I’ve crocheted Little Miss a pinafore dress and matching cardigan for a Christmas present, and I’ll come back soon to share some of the crocheted clothes I’ve been making for her over the past few months. But today I’ve come to share some absolutely fabulous post-Christmas news with you all.

And here it is – ta da! I present to you The Winding Path blanket.

Yes, it’s the cable blanket I was working on during the first half of the year – and isn’t it gorgeous? I love it so much. It’s thick and cosy and squishy and perfect for the colder weather we’re getting now. You can see all three colourways here – two in Stylecraft Highland Heathers, and one in Special DK.

Aren’t they gorgeous? Honestly, I can’t even say I have a favourite, I love all three in different ways. And let me tell you, with all those cables, these blankets are seriously weighty and snuggly. I could spend all winter long just hibernating under one of them – or I would, if I didn’t have a four month old! 😀

Aaaaaand I have even bigger news about this blanket, and that’s that I’m going to be releasing it to you all as a CAL in the New Year!

Yes, that’s right, I will be running a CAL with a baby who will be five months. And then six months, seven months, eight months….yeaaaah, I’m doing that 😀 but it’s going to be fun! So fun! I honestly can’t wait to start sharing this with you all.

Helping me run things will be the wonderful Jill, who crocheted the Woodland Wander version (and half of the Highland Hike, when I realised Little Miss’s arrival was coming at me like a steam train!). She also crocheted the Tequila Sunrise version of the Kaleidoscope blanket, and was and continues to be one of the admins in the Facebook Kaleidoscope CAL group. She’s going to be on hand on Facebook to help me answer any and all questions. There’ll be a FB group just for this CAL, and I’ll be making that live in a couple of weeks so you can all come along and say hi.

Here are some details for you:

• Yarn packs will go on sale at Wool Warehouse on 6th January 2025 – that’s Twelfth Night, i.e. the formal end of Christmas! Other retailers are available and I encourage you to use your local yarn shop if you can.
• Also on 6th January, I will be releasing an Introduction – part 00, if you will – that will tell you all about the yarn quantities, the gauge, the stitches involved, and all those details.
• Part 01 of the CAL will be released three weeks later, on 27th January, and further parts will be released fortnightly – on 10^th Feb, 24^th Feb, 10^th March, 24^th March, 7^th April, 21^st April, 5^th May and 19^th May.
• I’ll be coming back over the next three weeks, once a week, to talk about each of the three colourways in turn, and hopefully help you get as excited as I am. I’ll also give you yarn quantities for each colourway in these posts, for anybody who wants to get a head start on buying or to work out how to stashbust.

I’m so excited to begin sharing this labour of love with you all. As I’m sure you all know by now, I love post stitches in my crochet, and cables are allll about the post stitches. If that worries you about this blanket, don’t panic! The blanket is designed to take you gradually from the first steps of a basic two strand cable, through more complicated patterns, and right up to an eight strand cable that you’ll be really proud about. The pattern has lots of pictures, and there are diagrams for every single part.

I’ll be back next week to give you all a closer look at the Moorland Meander colourway. See you soon!

Catherine