Starting a Natal Birth Chart Blanket

I took a hiatus to focus on some personal stuff, but I’m back, and I’ve got something big for you.

Ah, tapestry crochet. It can come out looking awesome, but it is a pain to master. And writing the patterns? Unless filling in squares of graphing paper is your thing, it’s tedious.

The upside is that it often comes out looking like an 8-bit videogame system, so if you want to make a Nintendo-themed quilt, you can. Today, though, we’re going to start working on the tools to make a natal chart blanket. It’s a long project, so stick around for more entries on how to make it.

What is a natal chart? In astrology, a natal chart shows where the planets were in the sky when you were born: the star signs they were living under and if you know your ascendant (you can calculate that with your birth time), which houses.

I will be making the natal chart for myself (and expect to get it done by my 30th birthday as a present to myself, so shortly before Halloween), but with the graphs I will show you, you can make your own natal chart blanket, for yourself or someone else (it makes a great gift for babies, but I wouldn’t start it before the kid is born, otherwise, you don’t know their chart).

Anyway, this is what a sample chart looks like (courtesy of International Astrologers):

In order to capture the entire chart (including a wheel and the graphs below) this blanket will have to be huge, or the squares will have to be small – either way, it will be a doozy to create, and will take a lot of time. However, if you just take the aspect chart (the big graph below the wheel), it would make an awesome quilt or baby blanket. You can take the wheel and make a cool circle blanket with it, but for now, I’m just concentrating on making the aspect chart into a quilt.

I want these blogs to show you how to take the chart from the page to your hook. I also want to show you how I designed it, as a behind-the-scenes look. They will feature:

1. A tutorial on how to tapestry crochet

2. How to design a tapestry crochet square (and write the pattern). I will break these tutorials up in three parts:
   

3. Sun, moon, and inner planets

4. Outer planets

5. Major aspects (conjunct, opposite, square, trine, sextile)

6. How to figure out your aspects (with free online calculators, it’s easy), and map your quilt based on that (including how many squares you will need to make for each planet and aspect)

7. Color selection for Tapestry crochet and astrology

8. Sample blanket pattern to show you how it’s done

9. How to join the quilt squares together and make a border.

I’m beginning with a tutorial on how I make my tapestry crochet patterns, and the first few entries on the blanket will be about making squares. In the next entry, I’m giving a quick tutorial on tapestry crochet and next, I’m showing you how I designed the planetary symbols for the graph of the chart.

These entries will come out every other week so I can keep giving you smaller patterns and keep writing about seasonal uses for crochet. Stay tuned for an entry on Ostara, especially with the full moon coming up.