Finished Summer Blossom Mandala Blanket

 Hi all -

It looks like the country is warming up this week. I'm certainly loving the beautiful sunshine and the longer days! Spring really is on the way!

This week I concentrated on finishing my Summer Blossom Mandala blanket designed by Rohn Strong:

Summer Blossom Mandala

It looks small, but it ends up being the perfect size for a throw when I use it on the couch. And when I wash it, I'll lay it out flat to dry and that will make it a bit larger. This blanket is a bit ornate for my esthetic, but it's a wonderful way for me to get better at crocheting and it's not boring to make. Here are some close-ups of the details:

Summer Blossom Mandala - Center Detail

Summer Blossom Mandala - Mid-Blanket Detail

Summer Blossom Mandala - Edge Detail

The yarn used for this blanket is an acrylic/wool blend that is really soft and seems like it will be warm. It was also really easy to work with.

Since I finished my Summer Blossom Mandala, I decided to start another fancy crochet blanket that I had in my queue. This one is the Desert Blossom Blanket, also designed by Rohn Strong:

Desert Blossom Blanket

This one uses a different yarn that is 100% acrylic. The yarn is fuzzy and soft and I think it will make a really nice blanket. So far it's been a bit difficult to work with because it seems to have more trouble with static. As I crochet, the static pulls the old ends that are hanging down to become tangled with the yarn I am crocheting with. But that's becoming easier as the piece gets bigger because the ends are getting further apart. And I like to pull the yarn from the center of the skein so I'm probably getting less static as the yarn in the skein center gets looser.

Finally, I've made some progress on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein. I've almost finished the outside ring of the first rosette:

La Passacaglia - Rosette 1 Outside Ring

I really like how the first rosette is looking:

La Passacaglia - Rosette 1

This is just the first rosette in a large quilt, but I really like how the colors are looking! There are several rosettes like this one throughout the quilt. My plan is to have several of the black rings scattered through the quilt to draw the attention across the quilt. There are also multiple rings of stars. I plan to use different solids for the star points in each of the rings. I think this will add some cohesion to a very busy quilt. And all of the fabrics will be from Tula Pink, so there will be variety but all of the colors will go together. I'm pretty excited about this quilt and hope to put more time into it, but I also have so many different projects that I'm excited about that I don't know if I'll achieve that. We'll see how it goes!

Nancy