I will be honest, I have always called them blankets. Some people will call them afghans once I give to them, but I honestly don’t know (or care) what the difference is. So my 7 year old self started calling them blankets, and for 20ish years, I haven’t changed.

Every year, my honors fraternity hosted an auction during our family weekend. It was one of our biggest fundraisers. As a member, we all had to provide one “basket” for the auction.

So I crafted, of course, and made a blanket every year.

This was the auction my last active year in 2007.

This was one of my creations.

Seven years later, I have continued that tradition to this day, and I still make Phi Sigma Pi a blanket every year for this purpose. I feel like it is a fun way to still be involved with the organization, and I love crocheting.

Unfortunately though, this year I found out that they are no longer doing this auction as it has been done in the past. (I am not sure if I will be creating one again next year. I may have to find another group/charity to give them to, and I have some ideas in mind.) I had already made the blanket by the time I was informed that they are only doing desserts instead of stuff. Which is really too bad because I always walked out with some pretty great stuff (like 14 pairs of Royals game tickets for 100 bucks). However, things change, and they are reacting to how things are now, so I really can’t blame them. Each new generation does things differently than the one before. And in all fairness they are still going to auction off the blanket somehow.

This one was fairly easy to make. It is all single crochet stitches; there is just a little bit of a twist. I saw a similar picture on Pinterest, but wasn’t able to find a pattern, so I hope my explanation is suffice.

I used yarn from Walmart, and I forgot to get a picture of it before I took it. It is the pretty basic stuff.

I used a K hook.

You first make a chain in increments of 5. Then you do 5 basic single rows.

Then switch colors.

On the second color, only on the first row, you will do long single stitches. The first stitch you will go down 5 rows. The second stitch, you down 4. The third stitch you go down 3. The forth stitch you go down two. And the fifth stitch you stay on the row as a regular single stitch. This will create the jags as I called them. Then you repeat this all they way down.

After this first row of this color, then you will just do 4 rows of single stitch, no jags.

Then you switch to the 3rd color. Again you only do the jags on the first row of the new color. This time however you will alternate the jags. The first stitch is a single. The second is down 2. The third is down 3. The fourth is down 4. The fifth is down 5. You repeat this all the way down, and then do four more rows of single crochet in this color.

Then you just alternate those two variations, until you get your desired length.

If you look, you can see that the alternating jags almost create arrow like shapes.

You could do more or less colors. You could also do longer jags, just make sure your first chain matches up with how many rows you go down. For example if you go down to make a jag 8 rows long, then you will want your chain row to be in increments of 8.

I hope that I explained that well enough. It is a little hard to explain, so if you have questions, please just ask. It is a really simple pattern. If you look at the pictures, hopefully that helps show what I was trying to write as far as a pattern. This took me about a month to complete.

I thought it created a good alternating pattern that meshes well together.

Our colors are purple and gold.

Grace was really upset she couldn’t have her photo shoot on the blanket like normal since I didn’t lay it on the ground.

I know my crafts have been mostly about crocheting lately. I am hoping to have some other projects to show you once we find some good deals for Baby W’s nursery. Oh the plans that we have! But for now, crocheting is what you get! It really is my first crafting love.