Thursday, August 8, 2013

Bendigo Woollen Mills' Murano Yarn Crochet Blanket


Back in March, I was super excited to discover Bendigo Woollen Mills' new Murano range. It's an 8 ply, 100% pure wool, single twisted yarn with a slight thick/thin texture and the colours are just scrumptious! I bought six balls of CK21 (the colour was labeled as "2" on the tag) to make a crochet blanket for our friend Janice. Since her birthday is in August, and it takes me an average of six months to complete a blanket, I started working on it straight away.


Using a metallic red 5.5mm crochet hook (part of a set that our neighbour Richard Gilbert gave me ~ "Gilbert" as we called him passed away last year), I crocheted nine rounds of treble stitches following Meet Me at Mike's tutorial. From six 200g ball of yarn, I was able to make thirty squares measuring approximately 19cm x 19cm each. Like the other blankets I've made, the squares were crocheted together, and there was enough yarn left over to make a border of four rounds. The finished blanket measures approximately 100cm x 118cm.


Murano is a lovely yarn to work with, so lovely that I finished this blanket in just three months! Before I'm inundated with requests because I appear to be speed crocheter (I do have a day job!), I'm sure this is just a fluke. Lisa Gentry holds the title of Guinness World Record for Fastest Crocheter (June 2005) as she can crochet 284 shells (3 treble crochet in each shell) plus one treble crochet (a total of 5,113 in total) in 30 minutes. That's equivalent to 170 stitches per minute!