The Ray Of Hope Sampler Blanket is designed to grab attention. It is made to look like a stained glass window sunburst, with a central mandala surrounded by rays and bright coloured panels in between. Not only is this a fun and satisfying project to do, you get to try out over 40 different crochet stitches while you make it.

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The Design

The Ray Of Hope is a circular blanket. We start off by making the central mandala in a single piece, then each of the surrounding 40 pieces are made individually before being attached to the mandala and to each other. The joining stitches become part of the design, emulating how real stained glass pieces look when fitted together. The finished design is around 1.25 meters across and will make an ideal bed topper, lap blanket, or you could even attach it to a hoop and turn it into a wall hanging.

Why So Many Different Crochet Stitches?

I chose a wide range of stitches to include in this blanket, everything from lace, shells, 3d, applique, puffs and multicolour stitches. There is a stitch for every skill level and preference meaning that you will be creating a massive range of different crochet stitches. If variety and stitch exploration is what you’re looking for, you will absolutely find it in this project.

One of the comments I see a lot in Facebook groups is ‘I can only make the granny stitch’ or ‘I can only make a couple of stitches, anything else will be too hard’ and I just want to cry out that’s not true! Most crochet stitches are a combination of 6 basic stitches. If you can make a granny stitch then you can make a V stitch or a Ripple stitch, or the Corner to Corner stitch.

All these stitches use the exact same basic stitches, they’re just made in a different order to create a different look. One of my aims with my sampler blankets is to encourage your confidence to try new stitches and see that they’re not as difficult as you fear. Each new stitch comes with a picture tutorial and a video to show how the stitch is made step by step so you can make each new stitch as easily as possible.

What Skills Do You Need?

If you’re looking for the easiest way possible to try some different crochet stitches then this is the project for you. Yes it will be a challenge if you’ve only mastered the basic crochet stitches so far, but the video walkthroughs mean that you can crochet along with me and see exactly where your hook needs to go. The reason a sampler blanket works so well for trying out new stitches is that you’re not stuck with a huge project made with a single stitch you’ve never tried before.

With each of the pieces of the Ray Of Hope being made with a different stitch, you are only making each one for a short amount of time. So if you don’t like that stitch, it’s only an hour or two of crocheting time before it’s done with and you get to move onto the next stitch. The central mandala is probably the trickiest part of the whole pattern. But it’s also the first part. So once you’re through that, it’s much more plain sailing.

What Yarn Do You Need?

When choosing my yarn for this project the first place to start was choosing a brand with a large colour range. I already knew that I wanted to get as colourful as possible and didn’t want to be limited in my choice. That narrowed down my options considerably.

My favourite fibre to use is cotton. I love how smooth the stitches look when made in cotton and the colours just have an extra vibrancy – cotton really does hold the dye well. But I know that cotton isn’t for everyone and it does tend to be a bit more expensive, so I wanted to choose a budget friendly, but quality alternative too.

These 2 factors brought me to the Scheepjes SoftFun range, which is a cotton blend and Stylecraft Special DK. Both are quality yarns with a fabulous colour range to choose from.

For my blanket I chose 18 different colours from the Scheepjes Softfun range. I also created a second blanket using Stylecraft Special DK with similar colours. However you can use any DK or light worsted weight yarn of your choice and the number of colours you use doesn’t need to be as large as my selection. I would recommend using a minimum of 5 colours to bring out the best in the pattern and show off those stitches. For the full colour list of the yarn I used you can check out this page here.

The Ray Of Hope Sampler Blanket would also be an ideal yarn stash busting project. Each of the outer pieces could be made with a different yarn from your stash, making it a great way to use up those odd balls of yarn or leftover yarn from previous projects.

I also used 2 hook sizes for the pattern, a 4mm hook to make the pieces and a 3mm hook for the joining.

How Does The Pattern Work?

The Ray Of Hope was originally released as a crochet along where a new piece was made each week. The free patterns on my blog still follow this format, but that also makes it easy to break up the project and follow each new stitch easily.

We start with the central sun mandala which is created in 3 stages, then after that we move to each of the individual pieces that surround the sun. Each piece is joined to the mandala and to the preceding piece after completion using a slip stitch join. Finally, after all the outer pieces are made, the whole blanket will be bordered with a jewel-like border that I made with the leftover yarn from making the outer pieces.

The border is surprisingly simple to make given how complex it looks. We will be using 2 colours to create the border, one to create a lace like lattice and then a second to create our gem like puffs. The puffs in between then look like they’ve been set in place, just like a jewel in a metal setting.

Get The Pattern

The Ray Of Hope Sampler Blanket pattern is accessible in three ways. All of the parts to the pattern are available on my blog for free here, or the ad free version is available on Ravelry for just £5 here. After purchase the whole pattern will be available to download from your library immediately. The pattern is also available inside my Pattern Pass which has every pattern I have ever created including all 5 of my sampler blankets including the Ray Of Hope. You can discover more about the Pattern Pass here.