Project Linus Blanket #35:

“Skateboarding Dinosaur”

When I was crocheting this blanket I had a weird thought that jumped into my head. These colors were ones you would have found on Jams shorts in the 90’s. I could see a blue pair of shorts with skateboarding dinosaurs in the green, yellow and blue shades. In fact, I feel like my friend’s brother had a pair similar to this and that’s how it jumped into my head. I can’t find any pictorial evidence, but I’m sure that Stephen had a pair like that… maybe.

Back to the blanket. I used the pattern Corner-to-Corner Ombre Throw for Red Heart yarn. I just tried finding the link to this pattern on their website, but the closest I came was this crochet pattern. It’s very similar and would give you the same results.

I chose this pattern because I had purchased some Red Heart Bunches of Hugs yarn from Herrschners during a sale for $6.99/ea. I specifically purchased a variegated and two solids that would go together nicely for a boy’s blanket. Now, typically I don’t care for Red Heart yarn, but this looked like it was meant to make items for babies so I figured it would be much nicer than their Super Saver.

This picture shows the colors much truer to what they look like in real life. The quality inspector had just finished looking it over and gave it the tail twitch of approval.

I really enjoy working a corner-to-corner blanket. You only have to keep track of your rows until you reach the last increase row, then everything else is downhill from there. I did not, however, care for this yarn. It is softer than Red Heart Super Saver, but it’s not nearly as soft as Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Yarn. I may have been a bit biased since the blanket I had finished before this one was made with the I Love This Yarn. Also, I fought with one of the skeins of solid color for 20 minutes trying to find the center yarn end. I like to pull from the center and I could NOT find it. My temper almost got the better of me, but instead I used the outside end (which was a pain every time I had to stop and unwind a long section before I could continue crocheting). I have enough of this yarn left to make another blanket so I will use it until it’s gone, but I’ll never buy this type again.

Since I was switching colors between two different solids (Blue and green) and the variegated (blue, green, yellow shades) I made a pattern to follow. The blanket called for 110 rows, so I divided that by 3 (36.66667) to determine that I wanted my variegated to be used for 36 rows. That was easy, I just again divided by 3. With the remaining rows I determined what pattern I wanted to follow, drew it up, and kept it by my side. If you look at it you can see the solid stripes of green and blue. Maybe the next one I make I will just use solid chunks of color in between the variegated pieces.

I don’t know when my next Project Linus blanket will be made because I’ve started a blanket that my sister wants to make for her mother-in-law. I decided that if I made it first I would be able to help her a lot easier when she starts on it. I’ve chosen a color scheme that my stepniece will like. I thought it would be neat for her to have a blanket that uses the same pattern as one that her grandma will have. So we’ll see how that comes together.