The Great Pattern Search

“Hon, come here and look at this,” my mother said as we shopped at a children’s consignment sale last weekend. “What kind of stitch is this?” I looked at the blanket she was holding. There was no way I was going to pay the price they were asking for, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t try to figure out how it had been made.

“I don’t know,” I replied, poking at the pretty swooping shell shape of the pattern. It wasn’t like any pattern I’d seen before. Usually, crocheting shells means that there are tons of holes and your blanket is more a pretty thing to look at than an object that will keep you warm. But this pattern looked like it would actually be worth snuggling under. Warm and pretty? I looked at the price tag again.

Then I shrugged, thinking, If I wanted this, I could make it myself. Then we walked away from it, agreeing that we couldn’t identify the pattern, but that it was nice.

Later on in the week, I began to think about what kind of a pattern I will eventually use to finish the tiny owl blanket, and started to kick myself. “Why didn’t we take a picture of that blanket at the sale?” I asked my mom. I asked my Yarn Genius sister-in-law if she’d ever seen anything like it, explaining the pattern poorly and again lamenting that I hadn’t captured it on film to show her, or at least to compare it to other patterns when I went looking for it on the internet.

To the internet I went. I looked at several different shell-type patterns, and hiding in the middle of those was that cute cupcake pattern. That got me to wondering whether anyone had yet invented an owl pattern, but all I found were hats and adorable amigurumi owls and flat in-the-round type owls that I’ve already been making. One pattern was for a kid’s snuggly comfort item, with an amigurumi owl attached to a little blanket made with a granny stitch, its rows alternating blue and yellow.

Since the tiny owls are granny squares, I thought the blanket was pretty cute, and tried to follow the pattern. My only problem with it was that you can’t leave a loop of one color at the beginning of a row and pick it up at the other end. In the sample I made, I carried the yarn through each row, but if I actually decide to make it this way, I think I’ll use all one color, or cut the yarn, or have two skeins of the same color to use (one per side). Unless there’s something I’m missing on this pattern.

The reason I like it is that it’s got a little bit of room to see through, but not so much that you’re going to be losing warmth, just like the tiny owls. Not that I expect that this blanket will be the primary source of heat for anyone in the future, but if it needs to be used for that, it should be able to be something other than just a pretty thing laying around.