Call the midwife firefly blanket with thicker yarn?

[Kim2022]

Hello! 
I have made a couple of baby blankets using the ‘Call The Midwife’ firefly variation. I like them so much I thought I would like to try making a full-size blanket for a bed, but rather than using a fine baby yarn like Stylecraft Special for babies, I wanted to try a thicker yarn. 
I don’t know which yarns or hook sizes would be suitable for this. It would have to be crisp enough to hold the shape of the dragonfly wings. 
Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Kim

[Granny Square]

Is this the blanket style?  In the US (I'm guessing you are in the UK, isn't Stylecraft a UK brand?) Aran or Worsted weight (US#4 medium) is pretty common for most not-baby blanket patterns, and is plenty capable of 'holding the shape' of lace like this.  I'm pretty sure that is the weight I'm seeing in the blanket in the video.

According to this, which is from the site of the US standards for yarn class definitions and a lot of other crafty things (that yarn and hook and pattern publishers defined, and adhere to), the recommended hook size for that size yarn is 5.5-6.5mm.  But that range could expand a bit, depending on your crochet style, I've used slightly larger and smaller sizes with that style yarn for various reasons.

For a huge project like this...figure out how much yarn you are going to need, and buy all the yarn up front, unless you want to make a crazy random striped item (you are unlikely find the same dye lots later.  I am not sure if US and UK beds are the same size, but here is a US bed blanket size chart.  I have seen posts where people have made blankets the size of the top of the mattress only, no overlap down the sides of the mattress, not taking into account that people are 3-dimensional, so blankets need to drape over the edge of the blanket for a couple of feet to account for that.   So to figure out how much yarn you will need--you could do a swatch in US DC/UK treble, measure it*, figure out how many square inches/feet/centimeters it is and unravel it, measure the yardage/meterage to extrapolate how much yarn you are going to need for a bed-sized blanket.  (example, if your swatch was 6" square, that's 0.25 square feet, and if it took 20 yards, you would need 4x that for 1 square foot so 80 yards.  If the blanket you want to make is 10'square, that's 100 square feet, so you will need 8000 yards.  Totally made up numbers, but don't be surprised if you need more than that.

*this will be close enough, your blanket is mostly that stitch, better to end up with a little extra than run short.

[Kim2022]

Thank you so much! That’s very helpful! Yes I’m in the UK. The pattern is a dragonfly variation of the one you linked. It’s here: https://youtu.be/n4Ra4tk2UDw

I will check those charts and make sure I get the same dye lot. 
Thanks again!

 

[LeapyearCynthia]

I hadn’t seen this one before but that is a pretty pattern 😊

I notice in the video she is using Caron Simply Soft, and it is one of my personal favorites.  It is a good #4 weight, a bit splitty but it has such a pretty sheen to it and is very soft both before and after wash.  I don’t know about the availability of it in the UK though.

As far as the hook goes, I don’t have the 4.5 mm she suggests;  I am using an F-3.75 mm on a C2C with the Caron yarn and it is turning out a bit stiff, I think a G-4.25 or H-5.00 mm would be a better choice.

Good luck, I know this will be beautiful.  Keep us posted on your progress ♥️