The Blue House Blanket Pattern

The main hexagonal motif used in this project was originally designed to be part of my Frida’s Flowers
blanket crochet along project in 2016, however I felt it wasn’t totally right for the design, so I made
an alternative piece instead. Despite its omission from the project, I love the motif and so I named it
‘Diego’s Flowers’ after Frida Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera. The pattern was originally published on
my old blog as part of the Stylecraft Blogtour in 2017, but I always intended to look at the design again
in order to make some bigger projects at some point.

Fast forward a few years and here we are with the updated pattern, which now also includes the
instructions for a matching half motif. The colours for this project were inspired by the décor of
Frida & Diego’s fabulous kitchen within their home in Mexico City ‘The Blue House’, which is now a
museum. The kitchen surfaces feature bright yellow and blue ceramic tiles and the painted table and
chairs that sit at the centre of the room have green and red hand painted details. The large terracotta
bowls and cooking pots that are placed around the room are decorated with flashes of orange and pink
- all colours that feature in the palette I have chosen for this project.

I adore the fun ‘fiesta’ feeling of this blanket and am really pleased with the outcome of it, but I also
love seeing how motifs can be used to make alternative projects, so I asked ace crocheters Marina
Kelly, Gemma Biggs and Sue Macdonald if they would like to come up with a couple of ideas for how to
use the motifs in another project. Within this pattern we have included some images of the fabulous
cushion project made by Marina and the vibrant handy bag project made by Gemma as well as the fun,
stash busting mandala that Sue created*. I love seeing my designs ‘out in the wild’ and I think the way
Marina, Gemma and Sue have interpreted the pattern is fantastic. Hopefully you will be inspired too!

*Patterns are not available for the cushion cover, bag and mandala.