The photo I showed yesterday was, obviously, a blanket. The blanket turned out to be my nemesis for most of the year. (Actually it was more than a year as evidenced by the original email regarding the need for blankets which I received in June, 2009.) But I digress.....
My friend volunteers at a local hospice and gives beanie babies and other small stuffed animals to the residents and their families. Since the Princess and I amassed a sizable beanie baby collection some years ago, I've donated lots of them to this worthy cause. (Having never achieved my dream of making my fortune in the Beanie Baby trade, I was happy to part with them.) In June of last year, the hospice administration put out a call for lap blankets for the residents. Emails were forwarded to likely folks, and I decided to make some blankets. They needed to be 48"x48", which turned out to be bigger than I thought it was!
Anyway, true to form, I began to amass washable yarn, since they wanted easy care. Those of you who know me well will recognize my modus operandi here...why just get one ball of yarn (or candle or bump of fiber or book) when you might need a lot more? That's why I have tubs full of wool yarn collected from all over that I use when I knit for afghans for Afghans. That's why I now have a tub full of acrylic yarn from which I planned to make blankets.
I started the blanket and made it as simple as can be. A dishcloth blanket, garter stitch, increase until you get to the middle, then decrease back down to the end. I figured it would be done in no time. But this blanket wasn't fun to knit, I kept running out of yarn, it still wasn't fun to knit as it got bigger and bigger. I would put it down for months, forcing myself back to it when I thought of the poor folks waiting for blankets.
I got serious and managed to finish the thing a couple of days ago. Of course, I messed up the end and had to rip out my last few rows, but they were short by now, so it was okay. I washed the blanket and gave it to my friend yesterday. She was happy and appreciative and all is well.
Except I want to make more blankets for them. But I don't want to take a year to do it. I need to learn to crochet.
My friend volunteers at a local hospice and gives beanie babies and other small stuffed animals to the residents and their families. Since the Princess and I amassed a sizable beanie baby collection some years ago, I've donated lots of them to this worthy cause. (Having never achieved my dream of making my fortune in the Beanie Baby trade, I was happy to part with them.) In June of last year, the hospice administration put out a call for lap blankets for the residents. Emails were forwarded to likely folks, and I decided to make some blankets. They needed to be 48"x48", which turned out to be bigger than I thought it was!
Anyway, true to form, I began to amass washable yarn, since they wanted easy care. Those of you who know me well will recognize my modus operandi here...why just get one ball of yarn (or candle or bump of fiber or book) when you might need a lot more? That's why I have tubs full of wool yarn collected from all over that I use when I knit for afghans for Afghans. That's why I now have a tub full of acrylic yarn from which I planned to make blankets.
I started the blanket and made it as simple as can be. A dishcloth blanket, garter stitch, increase until you get to the middle, then decrease back down to the end. I figured it would be done in no time. But this blanket wasn't fun to knit, I kept running out of yarn, it still wasn't fun to knit as it got bigger and bigger. I would put it down for months, forcing myself back to it when I thought of the poor folks waiting for blankets.
I got serious and managed to finish the thing a couple of days ago. Of course, I messed up the end and had to rip out my last few rows, but they were short by now, so it was okay. I washed the blanket and gave it to my friend yesterday. She was happy and appreciative and all is well.
Except I want to make more blankets for them. But I don't want to take a year to do it. I need to learn to crochet.
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