If you find my son under a pile of yarn – I can only apologise. During the summer the imminent realisation that my ‘little baby’ was about to leave for college was not a subtle, but rather a clanging symbol of….’Oh no!!!! I need to make him something’. Essentially I am not nesting… but de-nesting. He is flying the nest. An event that had to be prepared for through craft.
When I was expecting him, I felt the need to knit and sew with cliched predictability. I made a gorgeous heart covered blanket. It was so beautiful. We used it for years. I taught myself to crochet when ‘Little B’ was very young and so many of my early designs were made to entertain him. A little penguin, a tiny monster – cute amigurumi that I would complete late into the night and I would leave for him to find the next morning. I waited for that delighted shriek.
The flying the nest projects started with the knitted Safe at Home Blanket. A colourful version of a classic pattern. I always promised myself I wouldn’t knit another blanket. But then this project was special and the design reminds me of the northern terraced houses of home. It has been a gargantuan project. In the end I managed 8 rows of houses, all broken up with a section of navy garter stitch. I used my stash of Stylecraft Special Aran and the effect is a joyful and cosy blanket.
I should have stopped there…but I didn’t. I finished one set of socks. You know how it goes, you make one sock and then perhaps lose the enthusiasm to make the second. With those completed, I then added a second pair of socks worked on during our summer holiday. I will admit that a sock project is ideal for travelling. But two pairs of socks in one summer. The proof that madness was upon us.
The oddest compulsion was to sew him a quilt. I thought it would be fun to use so block printed fabrics and add in scraps of a shirt B had loved but was irreparable. A cute idea, but really I haven’t got out the sewing machine in years. It was at the very last stages that I realised I had made something very similar for myself the very summer before I went to University. How odd. It cannot be a coincidence that sewing and making soothes my soul.
I’m happy to say that all these ‘smothering-gifts’ are installed with their new owner in their college room. After all that frantic activity, ‘what now? you may ask. Well I returned home to finish a home quilt – a new quilt. A delightful soft and smooth Irish Chain block quilt in Liberty Tana Lawn cotton from Alice Caroline Fabrics. The finish project is not perfect, but the sewing was joyful.
In all of this the catty foreman has been our quality tester. Stanley seems to seek out brand new, just-finished projects and graces them with his seal of approval. They become the ultimate nap destination. None of us minds. It is the seal of comfort approval.
I am fully aware that my ‘love language’ is making. No great revelation there. Thankfully Stanley is an excellent companion and his love language is sitting and sleeping and shedding hair. We will keep making together – inspired by love.
There are plenty of YouTube videos up on my channel which talk about the journey of making the ‘Stashheap Challenge’ Blankets and the quilt for college. Please tell me if you have felt compelled to make similar projects for your family of friends ‘flying the nest’.