My Blanket Stack
Published on February 10, 2023

Updated Gumball Blanket: Now Featuring Continuous Join As-You-Go

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Hey, lovely! I have a fun crochet project to share with you today in anticipation of Valentine’s Day! This month, I am focusing on getting back to my creative roots, since the debut post of my Creative Clarity series is about falling back in love with your art. I have felt a little out of touch with my art lately as I was working on a huge design, the Scheepjes Colour Lab CAL, and now that that project is off the ground, I turned to my planned project list, but nothing was calling my name.

Feeling super uninspired, I followed my own advice and reached back to the beginning of my creative journey to my Gumball Blanket design. It was the first blanket I ever designed! While I went over the pattern, I realized there were some improvements that I could make to the construction method, and so I decided to re-release the design as a second version, with a fresh color palette and an updated joining method for you.

This post is all about Gumball Blanket! Look for the free pattern, with step by step instructions and videos, plus the PDF version, available in UK and US Terms on Valentine’s Day.

Find the Gumball Blanket v2 Pattern PDF on Etsy and Ravelry! (Both US and UK Terms are included in the purchase.) Coming Valentine’s Day!

The Original Gumball Blanket

In 2012, the original Gumball Blanket pattern was born – my first ever design. It features cute circle-to-square motifs, which are joined as-you-go on the final round. Over the course of my time making custom blankets, I made over 20 Gumball Blankets! It was one of my most popular custom work designs.

In most of my samples, I gridded the two-color dots against a neutral background, but sometimes I made it with solid white circles instead, and used a full range of colors to square the motifs. Since the motifs are joined as you go on the final round, the colors butt up against each other, and it looks like a gorgeous paint palette.

These photos are of the progression I used for joining this blanket of many colors. In these original Gumball Blankets, I did not use a continuous join as-you-go. If you want to go for this style with the different colors used to square off the circle motifs, then you should still use this original version of the pattern! A continuous join would not work for this style because you need a one-color join for that.

I used my full DK/light worsted stash for this one, by the way! And, yes, I mixed across several yarn lines to create a large range of colors. It would be amazing to make one of these again! If you want to see all of the Gumball Blankets I made, you can head to my old portfolio site, BabyLove Brand, which is my old business name. Who is an OG follower and remembers “BabyLove Brand”? hehe

Using Continuous Join for Gumball

It turns out, as I looked back through my old WIP photos, I realized that I did use the continuous join for my Gumball Blanket in the past, and just didn’t remember! Check out this one in a purple and violet color palette. Isn’t she pretty?

If you’re familiar with continuous join as-you-go, you’ll know it’s meant to relieve you from having to weave all of the ends from cutting the yarn after every square.

So the keen-eyed among you might be wondering, if the final two rounds are both the same color, then what is the purpose of doing a continuous join? Because you would just have to work the second-to-last round in the joining color and cut the yarn again on each square anyway. In the photo above, you can see the squares to be joined have the white round added.

Actually, the continuous join still serves a fantastic purpose! It improves the integrity of the blanket drastically by forming a sort of “net” for the motifs to lock into. The corners come out a lot neater and more uniform!

Peep this close-up, where you can see that Gumball also features my PLT Join maneuver!

I found another custom blanket where I used the continuous join. Isn’t this neutral background delish? The colors of this piece were itaken from an abstract painting in the recipient’s nursery. I’m in love with the soft pastels blended with the navy blue accents.

Hopefully you can tell how uniform and neat this join makes your corners. There’s something about cutting after every motif that makes the blanket a tad loose or even sloppy. You could only tell if you saw the two compared side by side, but it does make a difference.

Now that I’ve taken you on a walk with me down Gumball Blanket memory lane, let’s look at my new version, made in Scheepjes Our Tribe Yarn.

Creative Roots

This beautiful red project that I am going to share is connected to my recent Creative Clarity post that will help you fall in love with your art again. You should check out that post if you:

  • Get frustrated during your art-making process
  • Have generally fallen out of love with your art
  • Feel like you have lost your way in your creative practice

Gumball Blanket v2 in Our Tribe Yarn

I’m so excited to share this updated version with you! Making these little circles for the motif centers was the most crochet fun I have had in a long time, and that’s what it’s really about. When you get reconnected with your creative roots and revisit your first big make, you will see it’s probably a simple design, and therefore you can have fun with it, versus the brainwork that comes with digging into a complex design.

Don’t get me wrong, I love diving into a complicated piece, but if I’m trying to fall in love with my art again, I just want to have fun!

I’m definitely having a blast working with Our Tribe. These circles are all from the same ball, and they’re placed in the order that they were created, This color is “Jellina Creations.”

The three shades of Our Tribe that I am using are shown below. From left to right: Jellina Creations, Happy in Red, and Haak Maar Raak.

If you want to grab some Our Tribe and make this one up, here are the details!

Shop Our Tribe Yarn

Head to WoolWarehouse to shop Our Tribe through my affiliate link – this helps support my work at no extra cost. Or head to a Scheepjes Retailer near you!

Isn’t the range stunning?

I just love Our Tribe yarn. You may know that the colorways were created by the Scheepjes Bloggers, as you can see by their namesakes! I even have a colorway, which I still can’t quite believe. Such an honor!

My CypressTextiles colorway is the fifth ball from the top on the right-hand column of yarn in this photo. It’s the pretty aqua and pale green color – I still love it!

To make this lap blanket, you will need:

  • 3 balls of main joining color (mine is Haak Maar Raak)
  • 1 ball of contrast color A (mine is Happy in Red)
  • 1 ball of contrast color B (mine is Jellina Creations)
  • Size 3mm hook

More Photos!

This project served its purpose well, and I am very happily in love with my art again! Here are some more photos for you to look through.

Hashtags: #GumballBlanket and #CypressTextiles as always

Just look at how the deep purples and reds play together throughout the piece. The light oranges of the Haak Maar Raak shade also bring out the nice reds. Lovely!

Here, I have all of the motifs lined up and ready to join for the next row. With all of the color changes in this yarn, and the random way that each color change meets up in the squares, it’s almost like every square in the blanket is unique.

I’m loving how this blanket is coming out already!

If you can tell, I only did the PLT Join maneuver after every other stitch. Can you see that the “twist” is looser than usual? Just as in the original pattern, I added a simple border, so as not to take away from the sweet polka dots pattern. I also wanted the join to shine.

Well, that’s all I have to say about the new Gumball Blanket! Thank you for stopping in to see my FO reveal. If you want early access to the pattern, or just want to support my work, you can buy the pattern PDF on Etsy or Ravelry. Coming Valentine’s Day!

Happy crafting,

Rachele C.

The Art of Crochet Blankets

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