Kalevala CAL Info

Index

• Rights of usage
• Kalevala
• Kalevala blanket project
• Community, peer support and social media
• Schedule
• Degree of difficulty and need of help
• Yarns and size of the blanket and the square
• Official yarn packs and colour schemes
• Using alternative yarns
• Major difference in meterage, joining yarn considerably thinner
• Minor difference in meterage, joining yarn almost same by thickness
• Other yarns that have similar thickness
• Personal gauge and sample square
• Gauge of the sample square
• How to adjust the size of the squares
• How to treat the squares after crocheting
• How to change the size of the whole blanket
• How to finish the complete blanket 

 

 

Rights of usage

Take notice that a usage of the Kalevala CAL project and/or patterns isn’t allowed in any kind of profit making events, for example: in paid courses in community college or any other paid events.

​

This is non-profit project made by voluntary people for charity, so please remember this when arranging the events!

 

Kalevala

Kalevala the Finnish national epic has a permanent status in our culture. This anthology, collected by Elias Lönnrot in 1820’s, has been the inspiration to many Finnish artists, like it has been to all the crocheters in this project.

​

 

Kalevala blanket project

In Kalevala CAL each participant can crochet a blanket, loosely themed by Kalevala, as a tribute to Finland’s centenary! The blanket is made of 24 squares (also a few bonus squares are available) with a joining and a border.

 

Milla Kuuskoski (former Elo) and Sari Ojalehto (former Åström) have the main responsibility for the Kalevala CAL project. Ourselves included, there are 19 designers involved plus many more volunteers in testing and proofreading patterns, translating them to other languages etc. You can meet the volunteers in Kalevala CAL Volunteers post.

 

The CAL is free of charge for all the participants (including the patterns and peer support) and all the volunteers are doing this without compensation. Please note that even though (and because) this is an important and large project so we will not be in a position to fulfil all possible requests and wishes! However, we have worked hard for you all to be able to enjoy it as much as possible.

 

Could you imagine any greater gift for Finland’s Centenary? The Kalevala CAL blanket project has also been accepted as one of the official Suomi Finland 100 events .

 

Each of the designers has designed one or more square/-s for the project. The patterns will be published free of charge and they will also stay permanently available for use afterwards. Please note that the copyrights of all the patterns belong to the designers who may have different kinds of limitations for the use of their pattern.

 

Community, peer support and social media

There are several project groups in the social media where you can share the joy with other participants:
 

• General CAL info with links to each square will be published in the blog of Arteeni
• Hashtags for use in social media: #kalevalacal and #kalevalacal2017
• Finnish Facebook group: Kalevala CAL Suomi
• International Facebook group: Kalevala CAL International
• Like the official Kalevala CAL page in Facebook (only in Finnish!)
• Forum in Ravelry Kalevala CAL group
• Add Kalevala CAL to your Ravelry library
• Kalevala CAL in Instagram
• Kalevala CAL Pinterest boards by Milla and Sari

 

The Kalevala CAL is a gift to tribute Finland’s centenary; this gift will also be open and enjoyed globally. The patterns will be published in Finnish, English (with US terms), Swedish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Czech and Hebrew. The translations will be found in the Kalevala CAL main page, and the links to the patterns via the English presentation of each square.

 

You can gather around the CAL with your crochet friends locally, too! It is up to your own activity! Put the CAL message in the grapevine! Meet in the cafe, for example, and share the experience with others!

 

Schedule

The pattern for the first square will be published on Saturday August 26th when there will be lots of events on the theme “Hundred days to hundred” in Finland (Finland will be 100 years old on the Independence Day on December 6th). After this, we will publish a pattern one square at a time each Monday and Friday. The last pattern to be published will be the border around the blanket on middle of November.

 

If for some reason you get behind the actual schedule, you can jump in the project and start on your own pace, and maybe make the missing squares later. This way you still benefit the joy of crocheting along! The patterns will be available on the internet even when the CAL is over, so you can attend later, too.

 

 

 

Degree of difficulty and need of help

The degree of difficulty varies between the squares. Some kind of directional degree of difficulty is given for each pattern, and with the help of peer support on social media everyone should be able to succeed even on the more difficult squares. You can of course skip the hardest ones and make more of the easiest ones to same extent. Note: you might need to adjust your the use of colours, though.

 

The preferred places for peer support and questions are the groups in Facebook (Kalevala CAL Suomi or  Kalevala CAL International) or the Ravelry group. Unfortunately we are not able to give support via private messages, blog comments, email, by the Facebook page etc.

 

Yarns and size of the blanket and the square

You need two kind of yarn with different thickness in the Kalevala blanket; thicker to make the squares and thinner to make the joining and the border. By using thinner yarn to join, the squares will come out beautifully as planned by the designers. The sample blankets are approximately 115 x 170 cm / 45 x 67 inches in size and weights about 1.5 kg / 3.3 lb.

 

The sample blankets are made with Menita Lasse and Pia yarns, which are now exceptionally 70% wool and 30% acrylic (normally these yarns are 75% wool and 25% polyamide). The size of the hook differs about 0,5 mm between thicker and thinner yarn in these sample blankets. You can also make the blanket by other yarns of nearly same thickness. In that case the usage is):

​

• approx. 2500 meters thicker (meterage approx. 200m/100g, hook approx. 4 mm)
• approx. 1000 meters thinner (meterage approx. 260m/100g, hook approx. 3,5 mm)

 

Note: The usage of the yarn, and especially of the yarn kits, is valid only if you use yarn with similar thickness and with similar personal gauge. For setting the personal gauge check the part “Gauge of the sample square”. If your gauge is looser or tighter or you choose yarn with different yardage, will the usage differ from the given amount.  Also notice, if you use several colours, the usages will be higher, since there will be more leftover yarn with multiple colours compared to single colour.

 

The size of the squares are designed to be approximately 23 cm and to made with a 4 mm hook and suitable yarn. The size is not a coincidence: patterns made with a 5-5,5 mm hook and thicker yarn match with numerous 12inch (30,5 cm) square patterns that are available on the internet. 

 

Official yarn packs and colour schemes

The official sponsor for the sample blankets of the Kalevala CAL project is Finnish yarn shop Menita. Menita provides seven different yarn packs with Lasse and Pia yarns (Menita only holds limited amount of the packs). All the colour schemes as well as the yarn info you can find here. The colours needed for each round of the square will be told in the publishing post of each square.

 

 

 

You can always use your own colourway and either follow a certain colour scheme of a yarn pack or design the colourway yourself. Almost every square will work nicely both in single colour and multicolour, with the exception of two bonus squares, of which one is better done in single colour and the other is better done in multicolour.

​

 

You can also do the finishing round of the blanket with accent colour. Then we recommend buying one extra skein of yarn in the colour you want.

 

Using alternative yarns

You will gain the best blanket result when you join the squares with yarn that is a bit thinner than the yarn used in squares (in other words the hook to join with is 0,5 mm thinner than the hook to crochet the squares with). Using Menita yarns difference between thicker and thinner yarns is 60m/100g. It isn’t always easy to find similar yarns, so we are giving you some hints to choosing yarn. We have tested a couple of yarns with different thickness by making smaller sample blankets. You can manage to do the blanket with these choices, although remember it might demand your own adapting and risk taking. The optimum difference between two yarns should be around 50-80 m/100 g or a bit more. But this information is only directional, we have not tested this theory with sufficient amount of crocheters.

 

Major difference in meterage, joining yarn considerably thinner

Drops Merino Extra Fine and Baby Merino yarns with meterage of 105m/50g and 175m/50g, so the difference is remarkably bigger than in the other yarns used in the samples (in Menita yarns the difference between thicker and thinner yarns is 60m/100g, and difference between these two Drops yarns is 140m/100g). This difference in thickness in absolutely the biggest possible, and then the usage, gauge and square sizes are not valid when comparing to the original blanket. If you use considerably thinner yarn to make the joining and the border, it might cause tightness on the last rounds of the blanket. Also the effect on the joining and the border might be remarkably more lacy and airy than is originally planned.

 

Mini blanket, with big difference in thickness between yarns. May cause challenge in tightness on the border, and the end result is maybe too lacy and airy to be used as blanket.

​

Minor difference in meterage, joining yarn almost same by thickness

If there is no remarkable difference in thickness between yarns used in squares and joining, it might cause some wavy and bulging effect with the first round of joining and the last rounds of the border. The end result might be a bit stiff and it may lose the gracefulness of the border and the joining.

 

Same yarn used in squares, joining and border, before blocking and a day after blocking. The lightness of joining and border disappears, the border might be wavy. The whole sample is made with same hook size; going down on hook size might help a little, but then the result is even stiffer.

Other yarns that have similar thickness

In Finland there are a few substitutive yarns available, for example “Vilma” and “Ville” yarns sold by Lankamaailma, and “7 veljestä” and “Nalle” brands of Novita. 

 

In other countries you can discuss and find substitutive yarns together. Please share the information to all participants.

​

Personal gauge and sample square

To find your personal gauge you have to make a granny square by the following instructions. The purpose of making the sample square is to ensure the sufficiency of yarn in yarn packs. If your gauge is more loose than the sample, you may end up with bigger blanket and you may run out of yarn sooner. On the other hand with tighter gauge the blanket becomes smaller and there may be leftover yarn. The sample square helps you to compare the sizes of your squares to keep the same, and if necessary you can remake square if it is too small/big.

 

 

Gauge of the sample square

Make a (basic)granny square with the yarn that you are going to use for the blanket.
 

• Make a magic ring.
• 3 double crochets in each dc group.
• Chain 3 in every corner.
• Chain 2 between dc groups.
• 10 rows in total.

 

Start with a 3,5-4 mm hook (recommendation for Lasse yarn). The sample square should be 23 cm. If the square is smaller, please try again with bigger hook. If the square is bigger, please try again with smaller hook. When you reach the size 23 cm or very close, use the same hook size when making the squares for the blanket.

 

Note. Do NOT block the sample square at all, so that you can use it for comparing with the actual blanket squares. Otherwise you should block the blanket squares as well to be able to compare the size – which is not very wise, if you end up adjusting the sizes.

 

How to adjust the size of the squares

All the squares of the Kalevala CAL are designed to be about same size, approximately 23 cm.  Although there are several things that have an impact on the size, even if there was only one designer in the project. Minor size differences are not a problem; you can join the pieces easily even with difference of 2 cm. But if there is major difference in size, you can adjust the size of a single square by changing the stitch type on the last round.

 

The last round of each square is made with double crochets. If your square is much smaller than the sample square, you can make trebles instead of double crochets. If your square is much bigger than the sample square, you can make half double crochets or maybe even single crochets instead of double crochets.

 

In the instructions of each pattern there is told, how the test crocheters managed to make the square on average smaller, same size or bigger than the sample square. Still there are personal variations in gauge even between different stitch types and therefore different square sizes.

 

How to treat the squares after crocheting

You can moisten and block your squares after they are finished, and by doing this you can finish them to equal size. Also the look of the square gets better. Blocking is not mandatory, though, you can easily join the squares and make the finishing for the whole blanket.

 

 

How to change the size of the whole blanket

If you fancy, you can make either bigger or smaller blanket than is advised in the instructions. For example if you are using yarn that is remarkably different in thickness or if you want the blanket to serve in different use. The border is adjustable by keeping the square amount divided by two. The sample blankets are made of 4x6 squares, so for example you can make a blanket of 8x8 squares for a double bed or a baby blanket of 2x4 squares. With an uneven amount of squares you won’t have a symmetrical end result.

 

How to finish the complete blanket

There will be more information about the finishing treatments of the blanket in the last part of the patterns, the border part. We recommend to moisten and block the whole blanket (by using scrap yarn). Interlocking foam exercise mats are quite handy for this purpose, you can find those in sports stores. Blocking gives your blanket the final touch that it deserves!

​

Always remember to check the yarn info and make the finishing according to the recommendation of the manufacturer!

 

Have a wonderful time crocheting the Kalevala Blanket and celebrating Finland’s Centenary!

Best wishes Milla, Sari and the whole Kalevala CAL team!

Copyright 2017 Kalevala CAL
Kalevala CAL – Arteeni