The Irish Jewel blanket (2003)

Dimensions:
13 by 21 3rd/11st squares (273 squares total, each square approx. 4"/10cm on a side)
48" by 72" (120cm by 180cm)
Weighs about 7lbs/3kg

Yarns (Coats and Clark Red Heart Supersaver):
Squares:
Black (312) - 118sq (4 8oz skeins)
Teal (388) - 98sq (3 8oz skeins)
Amethyst (356) - 57sq (2 8oz skeins)
Seamed with:
Gemstone (959) (variegated violet/teal/wine/indigo/purple/fuchsia) (2 6oz skeins)
Bordered with:
Black (312) (leftover from squares)

Photos Finished blanket:

Partly-assembled blanket:

Current status:
Completed December 2003. Now providing a bit of color to my offwhite couch.

Notes:
Buoyed by the success of the first blanket, I decided to make this one for myself.

I love purple and green, and love the look of Russian floral designs, with bright colors on black.

Enter the Irish Chain pattern, and this blanket was born.

Why the Irish Chain? It felt right. It was only later that I realized I was probably inspired by "If the Irish Were Amish", an Irish Chain patchwork pattern from Quilts in a Hurry by Rita Weiss. (American School of Needlework, #4132, c1991, ISBN 0-88195-392-X, amazon.com link) The exact colors are different, and my chains would be difficult to do with strip piecing methods (if you were to piece the entire top only of squares that were all the same size (much as I did!), the number of pieces in the repeat would to be divisible by 2 but not by 4 to make strip piecing work easily), but the basic impact of "Irish chain with bright colors on black background" is the same.

It took me a while to get the exact layout, though. I knew that I wanted the blanket to be 13 by 21 (because those are numbers in the Fibonacci sequence and I thought it would be cool), so I did up a fairly large field:

And I start selecting 13 by 21 sections. I tried centering on a diamond, which produced something with 7 full black diamonds:

(This would have used 101 black squares, 108 teal squares, and 64 violet squares)

Then I centered on a violet cross, which produced something with 8 black diamonds:

(This would have used 110 black squares, 104 teal squares, and 59 violet squares)

Both resulting patterns were attractive enough, but neither thrilled me.

So I started playing with the layout a bit more, and when I landed on the one I ultimately used, I knew I had it. I'm also intrigued by knotwork, like this:

So the resulting blanket was a pixellation of Celtic knotwork, done in jewel tones on black that vaguely reminded me of Russian floral trays, using a layout that is almost-but-not-quite a segment of the Irish Chain patchwork pattern, on a field that was sized to fit the Fibonacci sequence.

Designs can be rather personal.

This blanket was edged in black mostly because I wanted a double row of single crochet, and knew that I didn't have enough of the variegated yarn to do it. I used black, and am quite pleased with the result. It makes the variegation a bit more subtle.

And with a dramatic color scheme and pattern like this, a bit of subtlety is a very good thing.