Shades of Spring Sampler Afghan Pattern

The Shades of Spring Afghan was released yesterday and already it has been one of our best-sellers!

Fun to Design

It was such fun to design. Don’t get me wrong, there was some pull of my hair moments, some sighs exhaled and I think it got put in the naughty corner once while I had a cup of tea to think about it…

When I started this project I knew that I wanted to include stitches that were not widely known as well as the usual suspects people want to see in a sampler afghan. You will find aligned double clusters, even berry, N stitch, open scallops and so much more.

The testing process was also very different to our usual process. And our testers were just FABULOUS! I was basically making this beast up as we went! Each section was designed, drafted and sent to them as we went. Of course, that meant a few more tweaks to the pattern that would not have ordinarily happened. A couple of ‘Ok guys, we are going to have to frog this bit!’ moments happened and a couple of stalls in the process when life threw its curveballs! But the testers were so understanding. At times I felt like I shouldn’t be doing this. I worried I was coming across as unprofessional and wondering why the heck I was calling myself a designer …. but they reassured me and we got the job done! It was most definitely a team effort!

Why the change in tact?

You will have all seen how busy Sara and I have been the last year. We worked hard on our patterns, our FB pages and groups, getting our name out there and developing our website!  Sara lost her dad in November and of course I wanted to take as much of the strain as I could to allow her to do what she needed to and not feel like she needed to come back all guns blazing. With a couple of family issues myself I just took on too much. You know how it goes. February was a month for reflection for me and I lost my crojo (which has NEVER happened before) and mentally I needed to re-adjust.

One of our designer friends, Michelle from Two Brothers Blankets, had asked us to do a CAL for one of her groups in April and we jumped at the chance. We didn’t want to let her down. So we tried something new! On reflection I think that the testing really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was at the time. It was just a lot of additional pressure on myself to do it this way so I don’t think its something that we will voluntarily repeat!

But …

We now have our first sampler pattern!

And we think its pretty gorgeous!

You will need

• Yarn – around 2200 yards in aran / #4 weight. It’s a great scrap buster too – some sections will use less than 75 yards, others will use around 235 yards. I used three packs of the Paintbox Simply Aran in the hedgerow collection which you can find here.
• 6mm and 5mm Hook
• Stitch MarkersScissorsYarn Needle

Gauge is not important as long as you are consistent. Our stitch counts in the pattern are for 48” and 60” wide with stitch multiple included and it will be around 52” long. So its a great size!

Left and Right-Handed Video Tutorials

Many of the stitches used I strongly believe are under-used and under-rated. And now the testers have completed theirs, they agree with me .

For some of the more advanced stitch sections I have provided an easier alternative for those who are not quite ready to do these stitches. Although there are videos linked in the special stitches section so you can always give them a go! The more complicated stitch is given as option 1 in the subheading, the easier stitch is option 2 and is in blue.

Links to Pattern

You can find the pattern in all of our usual places: