2024 VVCAL, WIP
Published on April 9, 2025

FO No. 1 of 19: Rainbow Galaxy 2024 VVCAL Blanket

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Hello, lovely! Today, as promised in my last post, I am showing off the first of 19 WIP finishes. I truly hope to finish these WIPs this year, but time will tell. In the WIP pile reveal post, I was wondering which WIPs I would start with first, and when it came down to it, I decided to just pick something I knew I would really enjoy. Of course this means it was 1) a rainbow! and 2) hexagon motifs!

So, here is my 2024 VVCAL demo blanket using the Catona color pack and the Stone Washed and River Washed color pack. I didn’t use all of the motifs, and this is a throw-size blanket. There were some challenges along the way, which I’ll be sure to mention in case it helps someone out.

I’ll be adding in FO pics and links to all of the WIP -> FO blog posts on the WIP pile reveal post.

Color Wheel Motif Sorting

I had all of these motifs from the Catona color pack demo and the SW/RW color pack demo, and so as usual, I combined them all to make this blanket. My first order of business was to arrange the motifs into a sort of color wheel.

You can find these patterns here in my Ravelry Shop, in my Etsy Shop, or in my own Online Store.

Then I needed to figure out exactly how I wanted to arrange my rainbow. But first! Let’s look at where you can find this yarn.

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Yarn Information

Brief interruption to let you know how you can get these color packs!

Catona Color Pack

Colour Pack – WoolWarehouse

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Stone Washed and River Washed Color Pack

Colour Pack – WoolWarehouse

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Back to the project!

Choosing a Layout – Striped Rainbow VS Galaxy Style

Okay, I like to arrange my rainbow blankets either in a straight stripe, where the color groups are layered on top of each other across the blanket, or in a galaxy style where the colors flow into each other around the blanket.

This is an example of the striped version. You can see the top of the edge is yellow and white, and the colors move through the rainbow in layers down to the bottom of the blanket where you will find yellow-greens.

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Below, you can see the galaxy style blanket which is displayed in my mini-celebrity piece, Happy Little Tree Blanket. The color groups sort of form blobs around the blanket, flowing in and out of each other.

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Creating the Layout

I did choose the galaxy style layout, and since my motifs were already in the shape of a circle, I just started to push the motifs into a hexagon blanket motif layout. I didn’t count my motifs, so I just estimated how many motifs across to make it.

You can see at the top edge, I am starting to make the layout. And, of course, my helper is helping.

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Quickly I realized I would have too long of a blanket if I kept the same width, so I did end up adding another column of hexies, so you can see here, there is an additional column of hexies added to the right-hand side.

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Now to finish the rest of the layout.

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Making Changes to Use All of the Motifs

When I did make a layout, I actually had six motifs left over, and I did not want to have any extras. This posed a problem, as I also did not want to crochet any more motifs, so it was time to root around in my demo hexie basket and see what I could find.

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What I ended up finding were my Catona Spring Palette hexies! This was perfect. If I grabbed 9 motifs from here, I could add yet another column to the piece, and make the most of my already-made motifs.

I took a couple from each color and just sort of filled them in where they could go in the color layout.

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And here is that final layout! You cannot even tell that I grabbed 9 motifs from the Spring Palette hexies, and I am so pumped that I was able to make the blanket another row wider. Now it’s time to join the motifs!

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Joining the Motifs

Choosing a background color was pretty easy, as I only had enough of white, tan, or black to join with. I used Catona yarn in the 50g balls, and went with the black for a nice pop. My kids said it looks like a monarch butterfly!

The first progress pic already shown how awesome this blanket is going to turn out. I am using the Single Crochet PLT Continuous JAYG for Hexagons, which you can learn with my free pattern. Here is a video tutorial if you like that more!

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Some more rows added on, and getting in to the bright oranges. You can see here how the color groups are in sections around the blanket instead of in stripes down the piece.

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Eeeeeeep I love this angle! The lighting is so pretty in this shot and shows the colors very well. The black background yarn was an amazing choice too – no regrets there.

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Two helpers now keeping an eye on the project for me.. KitKat and Momo supervising.

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Squaring the Edges

I didn’t take progress pics of this portion, but I did want to go ahead and show closeups. First I added in the half hexagons that I made to kind of match the surrounding color motifs.

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And then I filled in the top and bottom zig-zag edges with remnants that I had laying around. Usually I just do the background color and fill in these zig-zag edges, but this time I just wanted to go all in with the color!

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Love how this method takes the color all the way to the edge.

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You can see the difference here when I use the background color to fill in at top and bottom edges. This blanket also uses a different joining method where the motifs butt directly up against each other.

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Finishing the Border

After thinking for a bit about what type of border I wanted to use, I picked a simple [(1sc, ch3, 1sc) in next st, sk2] repeat around the blanket because I am super eager to move on to my next WIP, but even though it’s a quick border, it still looks great, and just adds that little extra something.

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I absolutely love how this blanket came out! Super proud and pumped up about the first of 19 WIPs that I plan to turn into FOs this year.

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Thank you for dropping in to see my latest FO – No. 1 of 19! Hope you have a great week, and happy crafting!

Rachele C.

Order my crochet pattern book: The Art of Crochet Blankets

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