Sunrise C2C blanket graph

About this design

This graph has a seventies feel: a big half sun sitting on the bottom edge of the blanket, wrapped in arcs of colour that deepen as they move outwards. The sun is Y15 Sunflower, followed by bands of Y14 Butter, Y17 Apricot, Y18 Pumpkin and finally Y19 Rust, which fills the top corners like a late-evening sky. It suits a warm-toned living room and looks particularly good folded over the back of a brown leather sofa.

How to crochet it

The arcs are curves, so in C2C they become staircases with steps of different lengths, and each diagonal crosses several bands. A curve that is a block out looks lumpy, so mark your place on the chart after every diagonal. The blanket is wider than it is tall, so increase at both edges until the diagonal reaches 40 blocks, then increase on one side and decrease on the other until the 50-block width is reached, then decrease to the final corner. The sunflower centre is small at 108 blocks; apricot is the largest band at 546.

Size and finishing

With 2.5 cm worsted blocks the throw measures about 125 × 100 cm; with 2 cm DK blocks it is about 100 × 80 cm, good for a cot or a car-seat blanket. Finish the bottom edge in sunflower and the other three sides in rust, so the sun looks as though it is rising from the hem.

Colour plan

Apricot does the most work, 27% of the 2,000 blocks, followed by Rust at 27%. Every colour is used at least 108 times, so there are no tiny one-off details to hunt for. Every square of the grid is filled.

Working notes

It is worked as 89 diagonal rows; the busiest changes colour 5 times. No square stands alone in its colour.