Being the cool and hip and trendy craftster that I am (ha! I wish!), I wanted to make a blanket for The Youth, particularly The Male Youth, who are often under-represented in the afghan category. So I decided to make use of all those lovely, bright colours and create an afghan that represents the bars on a volume equalizer. My website gives you the chart for the blanket featured in the photos, but essentially the possibilities are endless - go up and down and up and down in your colour blocks to create a different blanket every time!

Approx. yarn usage is given on the website. Use scraps of DK or worsted weight yarn.

MEASUREMENTS

The original blanket is in German acrylic yarn. However, I did some test squares in worsted weight, just to check for gauge. I would suggest that you do one square to check the dimensions, this can help you plan your blanket. Just do the six rounds and whip out your tape measure and measure the width of the square. Then you have to do some maths (ugh, I know. Sorry about this.)

For example, for me:
one worsted weight square (6 rounds in total) using a 5.5 mm hook measures 17.5 cm or just under 7 inches.

The width of the blanket
9 squares x 7 inches = 63 inches across + border (approx one inch each side).
Total width: 65 inches.

The height of the blanket:
11 squares x 7 inches = 77 inches + border (one inch each side)
Total height: 79 inches.

If you do your initial gauge square and work out that the dimensions of the blanket are too small, you can:

• add an extra row of turquoise blocks at the bottom to make it taller
• and/or add an extra ‘bar’ of colour to the equalizer to make it wider.

Or
* simply add an extra colour round (and/or an extra round of black) to each square, giving you seven (or eight)-round squares, instead of my original six.