I’ve been working on my Elsa Doll for a bit now but I can finally rest easy because she is done. When I work on a new creation, I tend to procrastinate on its completion because I spend a lot of time contemplating how to go about accomplishing the vision I see in my head. I poured over images of Elsa on the web trying to come up with cool designs that make it clear it IS an Elsa creation. Continue reading
My mom loved making crochet blankets. I have nine siblings and there was a point where we all had blankets coming out of our ears. One of her favorite blankets to make, especially for babies, involved a very simple double crochet weaved in a way that created a reversible blanket that looked like it had squares within squares. When I was pregnant with my daughter, mom decided I needed to make one for my baby. She guided me through it and it was one of the most simple yet most frustrating projects she had set me on. It was essentially making two blankets at once so I felt like it didn’t grow at all AND that it was going to take me forever. It definitely made me appreciate how much work was involved. To top it off, when I made a mistake, I had to rip back essentially two blankets and I made a bunch of mistakes. In order to get those perfect little squares on both sides of the blanket, you had to crochet in an overlapping way from the previous row and I would always get it wrong so I wouldn’t end up with those cute little squares. Again, not complicated, but the execution didn’t leave much room for error. When she was around, she was able to fix my mistakes so that I didn’t have to undo so much but when she wasn’t around, I thought I was going to go crazy with all the ripping back. I thought I would never finish. I was determined to get it done before my child was born and I don’t know how I accomplished it but I did. It wasn’t even that big! My mom made big blankets and I was pulling my hair out making a baby blanket (giggling). My daughter is 25 now and still has her blanket. It’s a little beat up but she still has it 🙂
My mom made a small swatch of the beginning process for these blankets and I’ve kept it through the years in case I ever wanted to attempt another one.
I never have. My reasoning is that my mom made so many blankets that are still hanging around that there is no need for me to make more. I’m a more experienced crocheter now but the truth is I think I’m too scared to try it again 🙂
Instead, I tried my hand at a different kind of reversible blanket. My mom had made this type of baby blanket with thread for my nephew. I had never seen it but one of my sisters told me about it. She said my mom only made one for our other sister’s son (let’s not bring up the jealousy issues in this post :-). I asked said other sister to show me this blanket which she happily did since she smugly knew she was the only one to have one. I immediately went on the internet looking for a pattern for something that looked like it. I was extremely pleased to have found one. I made a swatch first.
Then I made a big queen sized blanket in black and burgundy. I ended up giving it to another sister and it has never been seen again. I really loved how it came out and am contemplating making another one for myself. It’s been years since I made the original one and am not sure I’m ready to tackle another. It’s been years since I’ve made any blanket for that matter but I think I’m ready to go for it. Maybe it’ll even be ready for this next winter (but I doubt it 😉 ).
yochet 