Most of the time these days I make for a reason. It is usually a design commission. They have deadlines, there is a purpose and they should be as near perfect as I can manage. I don’t often have a ‘me’ project on the go. in the last few months I have had a little project ticking away in the background. It all started one particular weekend.
We made the den in the garden a lovely wee place to have picnic. Little B was keen to make the space more comfortable with blankets. However as he dragged them out of the airing cupboard I realise I was editing his choices. ‘ No not that one darling, it is a bit too precious!’. How annoying for him. Later that day I was walking through Tesco of all places and spotted a jumper using the very fashionable ‘gingham’ style garter stitch. You basically combine two colours together to give a great vintage look. It got me thinking.
That evening I settle down outside to make Little B his very own play/lap blanket. I vowed NOT to fuss about the colours. I vowed NOT to care about the outcome. I vowed that it was for USE and LOVE.
I started with the blue and orange colours of the Tesco jumper and then realised that I could make the stripes of contrasting colours – you see a pattern just falls into the lap. I made sure I used my huge stash of yarn to fuel the project. It is really lovely to use garter stitch for a change, just mindless happy knitting, no concentration required.
By combining two double knit yarns together the resulting fabric is very, very cosy and actually quite heavy. Once finished I did spend quite a bit of time on the sewing together. I was careful intentional and thinking of the durability.
I am not sure I am happy with the crochet edging. I had another more pleasing plan but it would have required buying new yarn and this blanket needed to stay ‘no-fuss’.
A couple of weeks ago I went on a little sneaky trip to Liberty in London. There I spied some lovely Liberty print initials. Although not cheap, I felt they would be perfect to make the blanket very much belong to Little B. Actually when I bought them I said to the assistant, ‘How much?!’. But they are perfect, so I bought them. There you go the finished product. Once I had ceremoniously presented the blanket to Little B he rushed off to make good use of it. This photo was taken less than ten minutes later…..
I have placed a couple of blankets in a basket in our kitchen and they are now ready to go – ready for adventure – ready for late night chatting by the fire-pit outside. Lovely.
Since the project started I spotted this lovely image from the book Bright Bazaar by Will Taylor in Homes and Antiques magazine. You see even ‘Ugly’ is on trend.
Image taken from Bright Bazaar by Will Taylor in Homes and Antiques magzine
Certainly not ‘ugly’ but beautifully made and finished with much love, I expect this blanket will stay a cherished favourite for a very long time. It looks so warm and snugly will be much used.