If you read my last post, you’ll know that although Manjri’s Place went rather quiet for a while, I certainly didn’t stop making things.

So, if I’m going to start catching you up on what I’ve been doing while I’ve been away, I thought I might as well start with one of the biggest. Quite literally! May I introduce you to my Downtown Blanket. And yes, this really is crochet.

The pattern is Astrid’s Downtown Blanket by Astrid Schandy, and this colourful city took me around four months to make.

It was also my very first attempt at interlocking crochet! Because apparently starting with something small and sensible would have been far too easy. 😄

Astrid’s design uses interlocking crochet – two filet-style crochet meshes worked together to create the wonderfully graphic design of buildings, windows, trees and architectural details.

And when I saw it, I knew I wanted to make it. Here is how my Downtown Blanket grew, one row at a time.

From one very long row…

Every city has to start somewhere…

There’s hardly anything there! Just this long strip of crochet, the beginnings of a few buildings and an increasingly suspicious number of strands of yarn hanging off it. I had absolutely no idea how many more of those strands there would be before I was finished….but I can say that there were A LOT!

Learning interlocking crochet as I went

The first buildings and trees start to appear.

Before this, I’d never tried interlocking crochet, so I wasn’t just following a large and complicated pattern – I was learning the technique while making it…..perhaps not the most sensible introduction to interlocking crochet, but I definitely don’t regret it – it was an incredibly satisfying experience!

While working and concentrating on individual stitches, spaces and colour changes, and following the pattern diligently, every so often I’d spread it across the sofa, stand back and realise there was a building! Then another, and another – with windows and doors appearing. And even trees were growing. Yep – a city was emerging.

One of the things I particularly love about my finished blanket is that the colours are mine. I didn’t use the recommended yarn or follow the original colourway. Instead, I went shopping to a rather wonderful place…My own yarn stash. (And, I can assure you there was plenty to choose from.) Despite this using quite a lot of yarn, I’m not entirely sure it made a noticeable dent in my stash.😄

There is one exception – even my enormous stash didn’t have enough grey – I needed plenty of it for the edging and back, so that was the only yarn I actually had to go out and buy.

I used a mixture of acrylic yarns I already had, choosing colours from what was available and allowing my own version of Downtown to develop as I went. Some of the yarns even have metallic threads running through them, so little parts of the blanket catch the light and sparkle.

And then there was THIS.🫣

Behind every beautiful crochet blanket… apparently there is a yarn monster.

I feel this photograph deserves a moment of its own. Because this is what the beautiful finished blanket doesn’t show you….every colour change meant another working strand to manage, and another, and another…to be honest, sometimes it was less like crochet and more like trying to negotiate with a yarn octopus 🤪! Keeping all those strands organised was almost as important as making the stitches themselves….and I can assure you it was very challenging!

I very often multitask while crocheting – I’d be watching a video, reading something, or having a conversation while I crochet – this was most definitely not a project that allowed that! It was multitasking in its own right! I’d be counting, checking, following the chart, rechecking, finding the correct strand, untangling that strand from three other strands, checking again, and then crocheting a few more stitches – not recommended for the faint-hearted 😂!

And getting up off the sofa was also a circus act – it was almost like the scene from the movie Entrapment, where Catherine Zeta-Jones is navigating through the laser beams. Okay, I exaggerate – I wasn’t blindfolded… but you get the gist. In case you haven’t seen the clip, here’s a link to it on Youtube.

Watching Downtown grow

Before I set up my dedicated space for crochet, I’d be sitting on the sofa in the living room when I crocheted. With this project, after a while, I couldn’t call it “a little work-in-progress” – it was taking over the sofa, and half the living room ! However, I persevered, and tried to contain this as much as possible (my dear family have been incredibly supportive and patient while I took over this space!)…It paid off – the project was coming together beautifully, and the whole cityscape was emerging.

Nearly there…

Whenever I am working on a big project, there comes a point when I desperately want to finish it…so I often end up burning the candle at both ends (and even the middle – ha ha) to get it done. But it’s a double-edged sword as, having spent so long working on it, I’d grown very attached to my blanket and I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do once I finished it. But, finished it had to be as it was going to a very special home.

And finally…

N.B. In this photo, I’m actually holding the blanket up over my head. I’m around 5 ft 8 in tall and had to stand on tiptoes so that it wouldn’t touch the ground – that gives you an idea of the size!

Four months, countless colour changes, an alarming amount of time spent untangling and managing dangling strands, and one very occupied sofa and living room later… I made it.

And yes, I’m rather proud of this one. ❤️

So, my words of wisdom would be that if you’ve ever fallen in love with a crochet pattern and immediately thought I could never make that, don’t dismiss it quite so quickly. You don’t necessarily need to know how to make the whole thing when you start. Sometimes you just need to work out the next stitch. Then the next one. And sometimes, four months later…you have a city.

I hope I’ve inspired you to have a go at something you love, even if you’re just a little afraid of trying it.

You can also see this featured on the Studio Manjri website.

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Pattern details

Pattern: Astrid’s Downtown Blanket
Designer: Astrid Schandy
Technique: Interlocking crochet
Time taken: Approximately four months
My yarn: A mixture of acrylic yarns from my stash, including some with metallic thread
Colourway: My own

Astrid’s Downtown Blanket pattern on Ravelry