Going glacial
Amigurumi designer Ilaria Caliri moves out of her comfort zone
Ilaria Caliri of Airali Design is known for her fabulous amigurumi patterns – though she’s more than happy to move out of her comfort zone into blankets. Ilaria’s corner-to-corner blanket in cool colours ticks all our boxes, from contemporary and geometric to cosy and simple to hook up. We find out about the inspiration behind her design and colour picks.
What inspired your blanket design?
My design is inspired by modern quilts as I love to play with crochet and geometry. This blanket and its C2C (corner-to-corner) construction was perfect for the purpose, as it creates a grid made of crochet blocks that look like pixels.
What do you envisage it being used for?
It’s big enough for a double bed – in that way you can see the whole colour effect and geometry.
What inspired your cool shades?
Glacial colours. The main colour is white, but you can see a lot of blue and green shades, and they tend towards dark blue and purple at sunset. But don’t worry, this blanket will still keep you warm!
What were you imagining when picking out the warm colour palette?
I decided the cool colour palette in a few minutes, and I was immediately happy with it! When I started picking colours for the warm palette I tried several times and it was inconsistent… I spent hours moving colours around and at one point it became perfect, and I loved it more than the cool palette! It feels like a family blanket – the one you use when you’re far from your loved ones.
What do you enjoy about hooking up a blanket? I make a lot of amigurumi designs and they require a high level of attention – increases, decreases, details, etc. Blankets can be the complete opposite! They are often made out of blocks or repetitive stitches so I don’t need to count every single stitch, and to be honest, it can be extremely relaxing.
What colour combinations do you most like to work with?
As a rule, I generally tend to mix up warm and cool colour palettes – I like the contrasts of blue and orange, green and pink, grey and yellow! Having said that, I did use cool colours for Little Peryton, one of my designs that features in the new book, Unicorns, Dragons and More Fantasy Amigurumi (out now, published by Meteoor Books). He’s half-deer, half-bird and comes from Atlantis. He’s impervious and curious, he’s still a little boy but feels ready to carry on the family’s job: leading lost travellers out of the dark forest. He’s absolutely a cool character!