The 5 year blanket
I started my first 'real' job about a month after graduating University. I woke up on Saturday morning to my brother & dad telling me there was a Mini Cooper (one of my favourite cars) for sale in the paper for a good price. We went to take a look at it and next thing you know, I've got my first bank loan set up to buy my first car. All kinds of rather grown up things happened all of a sudden back in the fall of 2004. I started working on a blanket to help keep the back seat warm and cargo bay protected in my new baby.
While there was quite a lot of life that happened in those five years, the blanket never quite got finished. Not before I sold the car and move on from that first job. It wasn't worked on at all while I was away living and working in the UK—a dream since high school. I didn't start working on it again until after moving across the country and getting set up here in Montreal. Two years into living here and the blanket is finally finished now that I'm finally settled in a routine again.
In my usual fashion, this blanket has been ripped out and restarted 3 times. The last time was in October. I had originally planned for the blanket to be the exact width of the back seat of the Mini, but as I no longer own the car, I decided I wanted it to be wider and more couch friendly.
Also in the last restart of this blanket, I realised that when crocheting, it's more effective to work the ends in as a project's worked instead of in knitting, where they're left to the last to be worked in. Definitely a plus for crochet in my book. As this blanket had been worked narrower twice already, I was working with many smaller lengths of yarn. Instead of leaving them loose, I split felted them as I worked which is something I kind of really enjoy doing.
All these things really made it enjoyable to work on while watching tv. Add on the turn in temperature in the fall, and having a blanket on my lap to work on during CSI really made this project fly, relatively speaking to its previous progress.
It was also kind of a race to the end of the yarn. As I worked it became clear that the scarlet was going to be the deciding factor in the final blanket size. It did run out halfway through the second stripe of a pattern repeat, but luckily my brother Mr. Peabody has quite the supply of Briggs & Little sport which doubled up is a decent substitute for the Heritage.
It looks rather nice on my first couch doesn't it?
While there was quite a lot of life that happened in those five years, the blanket never quite got finished. Not before I sold the car and move on from that first job. It wasn't worked on at all while I was away living and working in the UK—a dream since high school. I didn't start working on it again until after moving across the country and getting set up here in Montreal. Two years into living here and the blanket is finally finished now that I'm finally settled in a routine again.
In my usual fashion, this blanket has been ripped out and restarted 3 times. The last time was in October. I had originally planned for the blanket to be the exact width of the back seat of the Mini, but as I no longer own the car, I decided I wanted it to be wider and more couch friendly.
Also in the last restart of this blanket, I realised that when crocheting, it's more effective to work the ends in as a project's worked instead of in knitting, where they're left to the last to be worked in. Definitely a plus for crochet in my book. As this blanket had been worked narrower twice already, I was working with many smaller lengths of yarn. Instead of leaving them loose, I split felted them as I worked which is something I kind of really enjoy doing.
All these things really made it enjoyable to work on while watching tv. Add on the turn in temperature in the fall, and having a blanket on my lap to work on during CSI really made this project fly, relatively speaking to its previous progress.
It was also kind of a race to the end of the yarn. As I worked it became clear that the scarlet was going to be the deciding factor in the final blanket size. It did run out halfway through the second stripe of a pattern repeat, but luckily my brother Mr. Peabody has quite the supply of Briggs & Little sport which doubled up is a decent substitute for the Heritage.
It looks rather nice on my first couch doesn't it?
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