A Nudge From Mom – Swatch Found

Yay! I found it! {Jumping up and down with glee} Where was it? I’m embarrassed to say, but I will confess. It was nowhere near where it was supposed to be. I’m also pretty sure I checked there already and didn’t see it.

See that mess that is the top shelf of my craft closet? See those clear bags with junk in them? The one on the top left has scraps of rags I sometimes use for stuffing my dolls. It’s sitting on top of the looms.  I rifled through that yesterday (among every other place in my office/craft room) looking for the swatch. And I do mean RIFLED! I didn’t find it. The clear bag on the right sandwiched  between a white bag on top and a white bag below was pulled out as well. That one has baby clothes in the event I want to make large dolls.

The swatch was on top of and to the back of the clear bag on the top left.

Knowing it was originally in a clear pouch that had other mis-matched pieces of crochet I didn’t know where else to put (things like little flowers and bows, disembodied doll arms and legs and my mom’s swatches), I opened up my big blue bin.

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Freebie Friday- Pattern – Mom’s Crochet

It’s always such a nice surprise to discover something my mother made that I had never seen before. Inevitably, I want to figure out how to make it, even if I never plan to, you know, actually make it. I go about this by looking at the piece to see if I can figure it out myself, and when I fail at that, I look it up online. That has various success rates. Sometimes, I’m lucky and I find a pattern, but most of the time I don’t. This is because I’m looking up the pattern based on how the item looks to me. The pattern might be out there in cyberspace but I don’t have the right search words to find it.

True story (mostly, it depends on who you ask)

Sibling rivalry is real. It is alive and thriving with my siblings. Whilst visiting my sister, she regaled me with a story about how she discovered a bag underneath her bed. A bag that had been there for so long, she didn’t even know how long. For one reason or another, she pulled it out wondering what was in there. That’s when she found a blanket that my mother gave her that she hadn’t looked at in years. Turns out, it was double-sided and very thick and pretty. She had made it for one of this sister’s kids.

The picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s heavy and  stretchy and prettier than it looks.

Reversible Crochet Blankets

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 😉 ).