Favourite so far?

As this year is my Year of the Blanket, I have been looking at different patterns and styles beyond my normal Granny Afghan or Corner to Corner designs.  Looking on the Crochet Crowd website in March, I found a new pattern called Modern Chevron Afghan, by Jeanne Steinhilber.

It appealed because of its unusual construction with 5 diamonds (OK, squares joined point-to-point) as the start, then colours built up around.

I had 2 large balls of Aldi Aran in bright blue that I thought would work with this pattern, and some oddments of different colours that I could use to add colourful accents.  I started with 5 bright blue squares, then added the first band of colours.

I did a few rows of blue, then another band of colours, meaning this to be one end of the blanket.  Turning it around, I carried on in the other direction, with more colours then a long expanse of blue.

The chevron effect is really deep and interesting to work.  Somehow it made me think of Native American beadwork.

I carried on until the blanket was long enough to cover a single bed (or to put it another way, when I had used up the 800 grams of  aran yarn), and then I put a final band of colours in place to finish it off.

The pattern has no borders, but mine didn't look finished, so after consulting my Loving Hands friends, I crocheted a narrow band of navy blue down each side.  I was worried that I would run out of yarn, but there was just enough.  So this is the finished blanket:

It weighs just over a kilo, and is destined for Operation Orphan's Keep a Child Warm project.  I found it very enjoyable to make as it looks really bright and cheery, and it grew really quickly.  Overall it is probably my favourite of the 9 blankets I have made so far this year.