I have this problem in winter that goes; I'm cold 'round my shoulders or I'm cold 'round my toes. It's one or the other 'cos both can't be covered. Because five years ago I couldn't be bothered To make the damned blanket an inch longer...
While living in Berlin I discovered entrelac crochet and decided that I absolutely must have a blanket made entirely out of entrelac squares to keep me warm in the chilly European winters. So I ordered a Mixed Lot from Ice Yarns and added in a few packs of blue, purple and beige yarns to give my entrelac blanket a pop of color. The mixed lot was filled with alpaca and merino blended with acrylic and polyester, so I ordered my extra colors in alpaca and merino blends too.
I had a marvellous time figuring out how to make big diamond patterns out of lots of little Tunisian crochet squares, and how much of each yarn color I could use before I ran out of it, but when I finished the body of the blanket and started working on the edging… I kind of ran out of motivation for it. So I added five rows of black in half-double crochet and convinced myself that that’s what worked best with the entrelac diamond pattern anyways. 🤷🏼♀️
I then declared the blanket finished and moved on to other crochet projects.
For five years I snuggled under it on the couch during the day and slept under it at night, always lamenting that it wasn’t *quite* long enough. I’d pull it up to cover my shoulders and my toes would stick out. I’d tug it down with my toes to cover my feet and my neck would get chilly.
“Sigh…”
Catherine Nessworthy, every night in winter between 2015 and 2020
In January of 2020 I decided that I’d had quite enough of that, thank you, and so I sat down one afternoon and told my husband that I was going to “spend the evening popping on a few extra rows on this blanket.”
A week later I had changed colors twice and I was still at it…
Because it turns out that growing a blanket by an inch or two around the edge is a lot more work than I’d imagined. And I had a few heart-pounding moments when I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough yarn to finish the row.
But, I did discover yet another use for my marvellous little stitch marker clips. I found that if I wound some of my yarn tightly around the ball that I was working from, and then attached a stitch marker to both the working crochet loop on the blanket and the bound section of the yarn ball, I could sleep with the blanket on my bed at night.
So while this “quickie” project took a lot longer than I’d anticipated, I’ve enjoyed the journey. I’ve drunk plenty of flavored Beanie’s coffee and watched countless hours of Hooper.fr and LubaTV and snuggled my heart out with my sweet doggo Matilda.
And, now I can make a new little rhyme about how cozy and warm both my top and my toes are and officially declare this blanket to be complete.
For real this time because I have no more yarn left to add to it.
