I began to crochet puff stitch sofa throw as a housewarming gift for a friend who just got her own place. I visited the place before and thought that a sofa throw would be a nice addition to adorn her new living room. It’s also nearing her wedding anniversary too. So, that would be a perfect event to gift this puff stitch sofa throw to her.
Puff stitch isn’t my favourite type of stitch to work with, and yet I fell in love with this pattern that I saw on Jellina Creations website. I thought I can perhaps make some alterations when I get to the puff stitch. In this project, I will be using big plied cotton yarns in three colourways, white (main colour), purple-green-fuchsia variegated yarn (secondary colour), and fuchsia (tertiary colour) to make it pop in the middle.
I can’t seem to retrace where this pattern originates, though I noted some similarities with the Sunburst Granny Square pattern. I might be wrong, but hey, I should be creative and modify the pattern as I like. According to my notes, I started this project on 30 January 2014. I aimed to have a final measurement of 150 x 75 cm for this puff stitch sofa throw—a reasonably sized project.
As with the original pattern, I made each square first and then joined them with the join-as-you-go method, so I could have a quicker finished look. The first round of this pattern uses treble crochet, which is challenging because my hands couldn’t seem to get each treble stood up properly the way they should. So, I decided to work with the fuchsia yarn first, because I used this as the centre of the square, and practice my treble crochet.
Puff Stitch Sofa Throw: Week 1 Progress
As I thought, treble crochet was indeed tricky, especially when I am not used to it. But after I finished all of the centre part of the square, everything flows like a flash flood. It was quicker when I start with the second round. Okay, so here’s the breakdown of the pattern I used:
- Round 1: 16 treble crochet
- Round 2: puff stitch on each st. –which I changed to dc3tog
- Round 3: 3dc, 2ch, 3dc, (3dc, 2ch, 3dc) as corner
- Round 4: repeat Round 3. Cut yarn.
To achieve my preferred measurement, I need to make 72 squares. Each square measuring 9 cm. No worries, by this first week, I decided that I want to introduce a baby purple coloured yarn to make the final border. I did change the puff stitch into dc3tog. I’m sorry, as much as I can make peace with treble crochet, I cannot make peace with puff stitch. I think puff stitch uses too much yarn over and I don’t like it. I also don’t favour how it bulges too much on the surface. No argument to those who like it, I find it a weird textured feeling. Check back with me—maybe I will change my mind in the coming years.
Want to learn the treble and the puff stitch? Check out these two awesome video tutorials.
Tutorials courtesy of Bella Coco channel, YouTube.
Apologies, I don’t have the guts to make my own tutorial videos until today. In the mean time, I can only refer you to an awesome channel on YouTube that’s on my go-to list for visual instruction. If I find the courage to film myself crocheting in the future, of course, I will update the link accordingly.
Anyway, as I planned, the join-as-you-go method made it faster for me to reach the end of the project. I couldn’t wait to see how it looks like when I add the baby purple border in. I also decided to start blocking the project early as I joined in new squares. Why? Simply out of preference. I had ample time to finish this before the anniversary event, but I was just curious on how this throw would look like. I always feel the need of that visualisation on the finished product, although perhaps some people won’t encourage to block early.
Similar to my other square projects, I kept on counting how many squares left that I have to make. I don’t want to run out of yarns and it would set back my timer if I need to buy another lot to complete this one. One thing I learned during this project is that I have to be mindful on the yarn used for each round I make. Especially because I chose the white yarn as the main colour for this sofa throw. I prepped quite a lot of white yarn already, but let’s see if there will be leftovers.
Puff Stitch Sofa Throw: Week 2, Finale
Week Two of working on puff stitch sofa throw and it’s finished! I guess, I shouldn’t be calling it puff stitch anymore cause I have altered the pattern. But what the hey, right? I’m so happy that the throw now somewhat revealed its shape and form and colours. I love it! I love how the variegated yarn blends in with the fuchsia and the white. I just hope that they don’t bleed when they get washed. I must test-wash the finished product first before gifting it.
Now that it’s done, my final ingredients list changed into:
- 3 balls of white yarn @ 100 gr
- 2 balls of fuchsia yarn @ 100 gr
- 2.5 balls of variegated yarn @ 100 gr
- 1.5 balls of baby purple yarn @ 100 gr
That’s a total of nine balls of yarn and I am content that I don’t need additional supply. Such an achievement, considering the state that my wallet is in right now…
I’m happy on how it turned out. It’s so pretty with the combination of bold fuchsia and soft baby purple as the border. I’m actually in love with this colour, but yeah, that’s because fuchsia and purple are my favourite colours. I used scalloped stitch for the border, which fits perfectly with the stitch count on the square sides. Don’t you love it when your crochet project agrees with you? The best feeling is when the mathematics matches the imagination. Yes, crochet is all about maths. For gifting purposes, I decided to use a matching blue ribbon to tie the whole thing together because I don’t have any purple ribbon lying around. It’s ready now. Another project is done in the beginning of 2014, and it feels so satisfying.
