Crochet Mood Blanket 2014

Being an avid “instagrammer”, I came across the hashtag #crochetmoodblanket2014 a lot (and I mean a LOT) at the end of 2013. Pretty soon I understood that the lovely Stacey Wentford-Hall was the big instigator of this nifty idea. And pretty soon there were a lot (and I mean a LOT) of people who thought highly of this idea as well and “it went viral”, as we say nowadays.

Doing the “Crochet Mood Blanket 2014”, means that you will crochet (or knit) one square a day (or per week), the colors of which will reflect the mood that you’re in that day/week, or that just appeal to you at the time of crocheting/knitting.
And it just does not have to be squares, some people are crocheting (knitting) the kind of blanket where you’ll be adding 1 row (per day/week and of course also in your mood color(s) of that particular day/week).

You can read about the “Crochet Mood Blanket 2014” and why Stacey wanted to do a project like this at Stacey’s blog, that she has just started, but also in the online interview that Monica (of the “Mon Makes Things”- blog) did with Stacey.
There’s also a fantastic and lively “Crochet Mood Blanket 2014” group on Facebook, where cmb-ers from all over the world share their progress, help and encourage each other. At this moment there are more than 2700 members, and I’m sure this number will even get bigger over time.

The big question was of course “am I going to join or not”. Gut feeling: a big yes, but my wip control side of the brain made me hesitate. I did not want to jump in, just to find one more piece of crochet abandoned in a corner of my craft room after a couple of weeks. Sooo ….. I made a plan and got all organised, haha!

First of all I got a notebook, that I’ve dedicated to this project, keeping track of my moods on a daily basis, determining the color or color-combo depicting that mood each day. Nice side effect is that I now have some sort of diary too – I like that!
Then I searched the web, trying to learn a little about the meaning/feeling of colors – for instance here, here and here, which was really interesting – I liked that too!
I selected the colors and moods that I thought would work for me and jotted them down in aforementioned notebook.
And finally I decided on the design of the blanket-to-be itself. Since I had already promised myself to start a blanket following a different pattern/idea (will blog about that project soon), I knew it had to be squares. Also, I wanted to do the 365, one square per day.
And how wonderful a source is the internet, because pinned to one of my own Pinterest-boards, was this different kind of square that I immediately knew THIS was going to be my “Crochet Mood Blanket 2014”-square.
The rectangle square, that I had found a long time ago on Susan’s truly great and inspirational blog “Crochet Again” (please visit, you will not regret, I promise) is the pattern for my CMB-blanket.
I adapted the pattern just a tiny bit (I’m omitting one cluster of trebles and chain 18 instead of 21, in order for two squares together to have the same length as the longer side of one square).

So ….. without further ado, here’s the first part of my “Crochet Mood Blanket 2014”!
Black is the color that I will join (as I go) with and I’m really pleased how the black frames the little squares and makes the colors pop.
So far, I’ve crocheted my mood squares every 4 of 5 days; easy, since my notebook tells me what color(s) to use for which day.
Happy I’ve joined this project/community! Every once in a while I’ll show you my progress here – fun times!

Love,
Marianne