Community Garden Blanket – Free Crochet Along

Welcome to the Community Garden Blanket CAL.

After the success of the Friendship Blanket and Bouquet of Flowers Afghan CAL I know that lots of you will love to give this one a go too!

Why call it the Community Garden Blanket?

This is another collaborative CAL with 18 other fabulous designers! So it was a community effort! I LOVE organising the collaborative CAL’s – so many of these designers are just awesome at what they do and I am so proud to call them my friends.

Here in the UK we have something called allotments. They are very similar to the community gardens in the US, but people have their own portion of the land that they rent to grow fruits, vegetables and plants. The sense of community in these places is fantastic. People come together to get their hands dirty, enjoy nature and just ‘be’.

So the theme for this blanket became the allotments, but community garden better represents what this project was for both myself and the other designers participating.

I mean, how cute is this??

For my version of the blanket I wanted it to be unisex. This would make a superb gift for any keen gardener! And I wanted my version to reflect that.

How does the Community Garden Blanket CAL work?

There are 2 ways to join in this event.

1. Collect the pdf patterns as they become available. A new square will be released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until October 12th. Then we will join and border our blankets. The pdf’s will be available either for the duration of the CAL or a couple of days, but the patterns will be available free not he designers’ blog posts for at least the duration of the CAL. The round-up below will let you know as the squares become available and what the coupon codes etc you need are. All you need to do is scroll down to that square’s photo, grab the code and click the photo to be taken to the link you need.
2. Don’t want to wait for the squares to become available? Want to start your favourites right now? Concerned you may miss something by collecting them one by one? That’s OK! There is an e-book available for you to purchase for an amazing $15.00!

What does the e-book include?

The 132 page e-book has been lovingly collated and contains:

• A contents page so you can easily find the square you would like to work on and print out specific pages if you do not want to print out the whole thing in one go
• All 20 featured squares – chart, written and colour block instructions for each square.
• PLUS 4 bonus squares that are currently not available anywhere else!
• Links to my tutorial on how to prep your squares for joining and borders
• A step by step photo tutorial for how to do the joining method I used
• Written instructions for the stunning border I used in my version – I also link to another option if you would prefer to try something else.
• Designer credits – a list of the places for where to find each participating designer and how to get in touch them. So if you would like to follow them on social media that would be welcomed!

If you are interested in checking out the e-book click the button below:

Never miss a square!

If you would like an email each day a square is released so you don’t miss any of them you can sign up to my Events and CALs email. This is different from our standard newsletter – which you can sign up to with the pop up box when you access our blog, or add your details in the box in the footer!

NEW TO CORNER TO CORNER?

I have a learn to corner to corner course . It has helped a lot of crocheters to master corner to corner. Together we look at reading the patterns, how to do the stitch, increases and decreases and colour changes. I will show you how to work both squares and rectangles too. We even make a couple of free pattern projects together!

Materials List:

As this is a Corner to Corner blanket I cannot give you specifics on how much yarn you will use. This is because everyone’s tension is slightly different but as long as you are consistent your blanket will look great! Also, some people prefer to do HDC rather than DC (like I did). HDC squares will be between 12-15″ depending on tension. DC squares will be 16-20″. It really is personal preference.

As a rough guide I used 12 skeins of Paintbox Simply Aran in champagne / off white. I needed 3 skeins of green, 2 of red, 2 of orange ….

I also used a 5mm hook.

You will need scissors and tapestry needle too. Along with 4 stitch markers for when working the border to note the corner stitches.

The Squares!!

Below is the squares on the order that they will become available. You will need to check that pattern has been released (I will tell you below), get the coupon code and then click the photo to be taken to the designer’s post with their link!

Are you ready??