The mini universe…

 A few weeks ago i worked on a blanket that had more than 100 colors in it. It became a colorful rainbow-colored one which was really fun to do. Before that i mostly took the colors i love the most which are browns, blue’s, greens and whites. When you do a more colorful arrangement it is so much fun to do. It make me think what to do more in so many colors. As i had the Sophie’s Universe pattern book on the shelf i didn’t have to think long about it, it would fit perfect in the idea. My idea was to create some kind of Tibetan sand mandala effect. My only concern with a Sophie ( i made it already 2 times more ) is the size of it. It is so huge to work on that my shoulders are really sour after working on such a big project. So maybe downsizing the whole thing was an option ?

I searched for options with yarns that would fit in a small version of it, but with a complete spectrum full of colors and so i decided to take the Scheepjes Sugar Rush. I choose 55 colors to work with in all color shades available. It was a lot of money to pay for such an investment but as i did use every colour for just a small part you have lots of Sugar Rush left when finished of which you can make even more fun projects. So i saw it in an investment for the future ; ) I used the following color scheme :

row 1/2 : 106 snow-white
3/4 : 130 Old Lace
5/6 : 404 english tea
7/8 : 255 Nude
9/10 : 523 Pale peach
11/12 : 238 powder pink
13/14 : 408 old Rosa
15/16 : 409 soft Rosa
17/18 : 264 light Coral
19/20 : 386 Peach
21/22 : 411 sweet orange
23/24/25 : 281 tangerine
26/27 : 410 rich coral
28/29 : 258 watermelon
30/31 : 390 poppy rose
32/33 : 722 hot red
34/35 : 383 ginger gold
36/37 : 179 topaz
38/39 : 208 gold yellow
40/41 : 249 saffron
42/43 : 154 gold
44/45 : 101 candle light
46/47 : 505 linen
48/49 : 257 antique mauve
50/51 : 254 moon rock
52/53 : 162 black coffee
54/55 : 385 crystalline
56/57 : 253 tropic
58/59 : 401 dark teal
60/61 : 391 deep ocean green
62/63 : 074 mercury
64/65 : 173 bluebell
66/67 : 510 sky blue
68/69 : 247 bluebird
70/71 : 215 royal blue
72/73 : 201 electric blue
74/75 : 124 ultramarine
76/77 : 399 lilacmist
78/79 : 226 light orchid
80/81 : 398 colonial rose
82/83 : 251 garden rose
84/85 : 128 tyrian purple
86/87 : 517 rugby
88/89 : 750 bordeaux
90/91 : 240 amethyst
92/93/94 : 282 ultra violet
95/96/97 : 521 deep violet
98/99 : 392 lime juice
100/101 : 513 spring green
102/103 : 412 forest green
104/105 : 606 grass-green
106/108 : 212 sage green
107/ 110 : 402 silver green
109/111 : 395 willow
112/113 : 244 spruce

I worked on the pattern with crochet hooks : 1,5 mm and 1,75 mm. The pattern will tell you when to switch to a larger hook.

And so it turned out soon enough the color changes were perfect and the effect was amazing. It was a lot of work to make it, change colors so much and work on such detailed size but the results where worth it. When you look from a distance the colors seems to float but when looking close by the details are amazing.

The end result has a size about 78 cm x 78 cm. It could be a little more or less. This is what i had when it was blocked. I think the size isn’t that important at all, by the original version it still is a Mini Universe !

The pattern for the Sophie Universe you can find here