I recently organized & participated in the I Want to Live in the Burrow Swap, which was a housewares swap, inspired by the world of Harry Potter. Participants could make HP themed houseware items, or items that felt like they could be found in the Burrow, the house of the Weasley family. I had the good fortune to be partnered up with sheepBlue, one of my Craftsgter Crushes. She mentioned enjoying blankets to snuggle up with in the winter, and loving Mrs. Weasley's scrappy style, so I clearly had to make her a Weasley Afghan!
I dug through my stash and found that I had a lot of skeins of Lion Brand Homespun yarn in a mix of colors. And though I searched through many patterns trying to find a scrappy way to use the mixed up colors, I just couldn't find anything that worked with the varying amounts I had of each. Many of the colors have been discontinued so I couldn't buy more of them. In the end I decided to try combining elements of a few different patterns I had seen, to try to make something work with what I had on hand, just like Mrs. Weasley would do. The two main patterns I was inspired by were the Lazy Girl Crochet Blanket, which used 2 strands of super bulky yarn crocheted together in a V-Stich, and the Fast and Easy Crochet Throw, which used 4 strands of worsted weight yarn that changed out one strand color at a time to get an ombre effect.
I used 2 strands of bulky weight, held together and crocheted in the V-Stitch. It's made up of approximately 14-15 skeins of yarn, 9.5 of which were from my stash. I bought 2 brand new skeins in Barley, and 4 partial skeins of various colors on eBay for about .80 cents each. Each partial skein was somewhere between 1/2 and 7/8 of a full skein. To create the ombre effect, you'll have to think about what colors you have, how much you have of each, and how you'd like them to progress. I started by laying them all out and creating a "rainbow" or color wheel. Then I made myself a vague chart, based on the number of rows I planned to do, and how I wanted the shades of color to blend. I've included it below, but if you do this on your own, yours will vary based on what colors and amounts you have on hand.
Here's a close up of the ombre effect created by swapping out 1 strand of yarn at a time.
If you want to try this yourself, here's the basic directions for making a V-Stitch Afghan. My "afghan" is actually big enough to cover the top of a queen sized bet! Somewhere in the vicinity of 60"x80". You can size yours up or down from mine, simply by increasing or decreasing your initial chain by mulitples of 6.
1. Chain 72 (You can do this with any foundation chain that is a multiple of 6)
2. 2 dc in 4th chain from hook. (This is the V-Stitch).
3. Skip 1, 2 dc in the next ch.
4. Repeat #3 until there are two chains left.
5. Sk 1, dc in the last ch. This completes your first row of V-Stitches bordered by 1 dc on either end of the row.
6. Now you're ready to start your next row, so turn the work and ch 3 for your first dc of the new row.
7. Skip 2, 2 dc in the space between the two dc that make the V-Stitch from the row below.
8. Repeat step 7 across the V-Stitches of the row below.
9. Skip 1, dc in last ch.
10. Repeat #6-#9 until the project is the length you desire. Finish off and weave in ends.
I added fringe by using the 'book' method of measuring. You can find a good tutorial for it here.
Finally, in case anyone wants to know the yarns & progression I used, I've outlined them both below.
Yarn Colors:
3 skeins Tumbleweed
2 skeins Light Blue (cannot find the real name)
1.5 skeins of Russet
1 skein Wildfire
7/8 skein Prairie
1 skein Adirondack
7/8 skein Light Purple
1 skein Barrington
3/4 skein Khaki
2 skeins Barley
1/2 skein Tan (cannot find the real name)
Progression of Colors:
Rows 1-4 Tumbleweed & light blue
Row 5 Tumbleweed & Tumbleweed
Row 6-7 Tumbleweed & Russet
Row 8-10 Tumbleweed & Wildfire
Row 11-12 Wildfire & Russet
Row 13-14 Tumbleweed & Wildfire
Row 15-16 Tumbleweed & Russet
Row 17 Tumbleweed & Tumbleweed
Row 18 Tumbleweed & light blue
Row 19-20 light blue & Prairie
Row 21 light blue & Tumbleweed
Row 22-23 light blue & Adirondack
Row 24-26 light blue & light purple
Row 27-28 light purple & Barrington
Row 29-31 light purple & light blue
Row 32-34 light blue & Adirondack
Row 35-36 Adirondack & Prairie
Row 37-38 Prairie & Khaki
Row 39-40 Adirondack & Khaki
Row 41 Khaki & Tumbleweed
Row 42 Tumbleweed & Barley
Row 42-43 Barley & Russet
Row 44-46 Barley & Wildfire
Row 47-49 Wildfire & Russet
Row 50-51 Barely & Wildfire
Row 52-54 Barley & Russet
Row 55-58 Barley & light blue
