The perfect antidote to winter blues: Create a cozy Penguins Afghan
Create a Cuddly Penguin Paradise with the corner to corner technique!
Are you looking for a fabulous gift idea for a loved one? Or are you feeling the winter blues? This season can be harsh with long cold days and short hours of sunlight, but does it have to be so gloomy? We don’t think so!
Snuggle up with the perfect antidote: creating your own cute and cozy Penguins Afghan.
Can you believe it’s been almost a year to the day since I released my sleeping baby Polar Bear Afghan? I wonder what winter animal I will have designed next year?
Whether you’re an experienced pro or new to crocheting, this project will help inject some much-needed cheer into your winter! So grab your yarn and hook; it’s time for us to make some frosty friends together!
Please note, this post may contain affiliate links – should you purchase anything using my affiliate link I may get a small commission at no extra cost to yourself!
Inspiration behind the design
Would you believe that this pattern has been 2 years in the making? I have tweaked this design so many times …. with scarves and without scarves, cuddled or standing straight, hats or no hats, one penguin, two penguins or more.
When it came to this one I have been so indecisive. To be honest all of the versions I drew out looked great (well, almost all of them lol).
But the one thing that I knew it need to include was the penguins. My husband just loves penguins. One of his favourite things to do is to visit Edinburgh Zoo and watch the penguin march. We haven’t been for a few years what with the pandemic etc, but I hope they still do that at Edinburgh Zoo. And on our annual pilgrimage to Chester Zoo (because they have the elephants for me!) we spend a fair amount of time watching the penguins frolic and swim in their habitat. Watch them for a while and you will start to see their individual personalities coming out.
So this blanket was designed with my husband in mind. It’s going to be one of his Christmas gifts this year.
Construction of the design
This is a corner to corner blanket pattern. This means that it is worked flat and in diagonal rows with colour changes. You can use the HDC method or the DC method for a slightly larger blanket. How big your blanket will be will depend entirely upon your gauge when working it up.
I just love how corner to corner blankets are reversible too!
Not a fan of working up corner to corner blanket projects? You can absolutely use the chart to work up a sc or larger half double crochet wall hanging.
NEW TO CORNER TO CORNER?
I have a free 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, as well as how to do the stitch, increases and decreases and colour changes. I will show you how to work both squares and rectangles too. We also make a couple of free pattern projects together!
The Yarn
I used Paintbox Simply Aran. You may remember that I am a big fan of this yarn. And this is not the first time I have mentioned this lol.
Paintbox simply aran yarns are is 100% acrylic yarn, which is great for blankets for little ones and adults alike because you don’t really have to worry about allergies to wool. And it is a lovely, soft yarn (it actually gets softer when washed).
This yarn works up great. It has a LOT of colour options and shades available and is very cost effective so great if you are on a budget.
But you can use any 4 weight (or even 5 weight) yarn for this project with an appropriate sized hook. Just remember that the bigger the yarn weight, the bigger the blanket will be and the more yarn you will need.
Get the PDF pattern!
This is a paid pattern only at the moment. But there are some pattern specifics below to help you work out yarn requirements etc.
You can find the ad-free PDF Pattern for this one in all of my shops:
Tester Appreciation:
My testers have, as always, been fabulous testing this pattern for me! And I love to see what their versions turn out like.
Some designers like to stipulate colours etc used, but I do not tend to do that for my patterns, unless it is important to the design. Giving them free reign with their colour choices etc also serves to inspire me for projects. In fact it was one of my testers that inspired my vintage version of my Granny’s Cowl and a couple of testers that told me about the zig zag slip stitch join!
Here are their versions!
The pattern specifics:
Materials:
| #4 weight yarn 7 colors 5mm hook Scissors Tapestry needle |
The colour counts for this pattern are:
| Colour | No of Sts | |
| Light grey (lg) | 858 | |
| Blue (b) | 1543 | |
| Dark grey (dg) | 10 | |
| Black (bl) | 643 | |
| Red (r) | 337 | |
| White (w) | 1394 | |
| Green (g) | 207 |
Gauge:
| Does not matter as long as tension is consistent. |
Sizing:
Finished size once blocked is approximately 40” wide x 50” long using Dc. If using HDC your blanket will be slightly smaller.
It is 64 blocks x 78 blocks
Abbreviations used:
| Ch(s) – chain(s) St(s) – stitch(es) The arrows indicate which way the row is worked according to the graph – left to right or right to left (this is the same with the arrows in the color block instructions!) |
Other notes:
| Written in US terms. Chain 1 does not count as a stitch. There are no special stitches used in this pattern. This is corner to corner graph and is worked bottom right to top left on the right side. To work out how much yarn you will need you will need to do a sample swatch with the stitch you intend to use (HDC or DC) and then measure how much yarn you used per stitch multiplying that by the number of stitches of that color and adding some for the tails to be worked in at the end. Color charts with stitch totals are listed under the picture graph on the pattern. |
Get the PDF pattern!
Reminder: This is a paid pattern only at the moment.
You can find the ad-free PDF Pattern for this one in all of my shops:
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