Cloud-Soft Shells Blanket (WIP)

I've been working on a pattern out of the book "Our Best Baby Afghans" by Leisure Arts. It's made up of shell stitch and v-stitch, and is very simple and repetitive. I am loving the pattern because it's very quick, has great texture, and I can see my progress after each row. I'll definitely be using this pattern again.

I chose Caron Simply Soft Paints for this project because I loved the "Driftwood" colorway. I've used Caron Simply Soft about a million times before for various baby items, blankets, etc and have always loved it. I'm not the biggest fan of the sheen it has -- I don't like that for every project, but you can't beat the softness. I assumed that the Paints line would be the same ... but I've been disappointed. Paints is much coarser in texture. When I washed my swatch with fabric softener and dried it with a dryer sheet it didn't soften up at all. I tried a second time in hot water, hoping that would get out all of the chemicals and dyes that could possibly be making it feel rough, and it still felt the same. I'm not sure "Simply Soft" is an appropriate name for the Paints line.

I used an I hook for this blanket, even though the wrapper on the yarn recommends an H. I should have gone up to a J even, and have been considering frogging what I have completed and re-starting with a J hook, but I'm 3 skeins in already. If I ever use this yarn again (which I am not sure I will) I will not use anything smaller than a J hook.

Three skeins of Simply Soft Paint. (Remote is for size reference.)

Speaking of 3 skeins ... that's nothing. I'm going to need probably 4 more skeins to finish, and that's before I add the border. Which means I'll need 4 more skeins of the Paints, and 1 skein of regular Simply Soft in a plain color (I'm thinking off-white with a single crochet brown border on the very edge) before I've finished this blanket. That's a crazy amount of yarn to me for a crib-sized blanket. I guess what they say about crocheting taking 3 times more yarn than knitting is true. I've never used more than 2 or  maybe 3 skeins to finish a [knit] crib-sized blanket before, and I'm not even halfway done with this one. Hopefully I can keep going as quickly to finish it up as I've been going so far. Crochet certainly works up more quickly than knitting, even if it does take a considerable amount more yarn.