Stormy Rainbow Blanket has been designed with my love of earthy tones in mind, but you could just as easily crochet it in a unicorn, jewel or brilliantly bright rainbow. For a more luxurious version, you could use Chimera yarn for the colour stripes. Charts are given for both options with suggested yarn colours.

The blanket is made using the intarsia crochet method and just one simple stitch. Easy row repeats make it a great first intarsia crochet project.

The blanket is a mirror image, initially working through 12 (rainbow mini skeins) or 6 (Chimera yarn) contrasting colours, and then mirroring these colours from the centre out.

Materials for Earthy Rainbow version:
RiverKnits Nene 4ply, 100g/400m/437yds, 100% British Bluefaced Leicester. 3 x 100g of MC and 12 x 20g mini-skeins in your chosen set of colours.

Pattern Main Colour - 3 x 100g shade Steinchen.

Pattern Contrast Colours - 1 x 20g of each.

CC1 – Jewel Fuchsia, CC2 – Jewel Crimson, CC3 - Jewel Tomato, CC4 – Brilliant Orange, CC5 – Brilliant Gold, CC6 – Jewel Yellow, CC7 – Jewel Lime, CC8 – Jewel Green, CC9 – Shadow Jade, CC10 – Shadow Turquoise, CC11 – Shadow Indigo, CC12 - Shadow Violet

Materials for Chimera version:
RiverKnits Nene 4ply, 100g/400m/437yds, 100% British Bluefaced Leicester for MC and RiverKnits Chimera, 50g/195m/213yds, 100% British Bluefaced Leicester in your chosen set of colours for colour stripes.

Pattern Main Colour - 3 x 100g RiverKnits Nene 4ply, shade Unterwasserwelt.

Pattern Contrast Colours - 1 x 50g of each.

CC1 – Rainforest, CC2 - Aurora Borealis, CC3 – Spice Market, CC4 – Sonnet, CC5 - My Other Boat is a Yacht, CC6 - Water

3.5mm (Us E4) & 4mm hook (US G6)

2 x place markers (different colours)

1 x stitch marker (to secure stitch when putting project aside)

Tapestry needle

Blocking equipment

Tension/gauge:
19 sts and 15 rows over 10cm/4” (unblocked). 17 sts and 13.25 rows over 10cm/4” (blocked). It is important to get gauge. If you don’t, you risk running out of yarn in the final contrast colour rows of the blanket.

Lap Blanket Dimensions:
Unblocked 100cm/39.5” x 87cm/34”. Blocked 112cm/44” x 98cm/38.5”.

Yarn substitutions:
Any 4ply yarn with 400m (437yds) per 100g that gets tension and offers good drape and stitch definition. The blanket uses approximately 18g of each 20g mini skein. If you use a different blend, your gauge may vary and it is possible that you will not have enough yarn to complete all of the rows.

Stitches used:
ch - chain dc - double crochet (US single crochet) HBtr - Herringbone treble crochet (US Herringbone double crochet) starting tr - starting treble (US starting double crochet)