This wonderfully colourful blanket was recently made for my friend's nan. She (my friend) came to me in March to tell me that her nan had recently been admitted to hospital and diagnosed with dementia. She asked if I might liaise with the local crochet and knitting group, "The Crafty One's" (sic) and maybe come up with some sort of fiddle blanket that she might give to her nan.
Now, this woman dragged her ass out of bed in the middle of the night to pick me up and take me to hospital after our taxi abandoned us on my doorstep when the driver realised I was in labour. Contractions were two minutes apart - my daughter was on her way and would have been born on the doorstep were it not for this lady. There was no way I was going to say no!!
Stash wasn't a problem - I have yarn coming out of my metaphorical ears. I had more than enough buttons, beads and patterns, and I even had some left over pink granny squares from when I was making blankets for the preemie ward at the hospital. However, with a relatively new baby to care for, there was no chance I was going to be able to do much in and short space of time. So even if my friend hadn't suggested I ask the Crafty One's for help, I was going to have to ask for it anyway.
I put a plea out for donations of squares - any colour, any size, any stitch, and of course the wonderful ladies of the craft group were more than happy to help! I had an influx of wonderful squares from people, and added to the 12 that I had somehow managed to do, we had the makings of a great blanket after only a week, including some knitted squares.
What I hadn't considered previously was how I was going to join said squares. I had squares of all shapes, sizes, gauges and stitch counts, and I am a person who likes things to be precise, neat and orderly. When I realised that it would be impossible to make all of these squares the same size and stitch count, I had a little bit of a minor melt down! It was a real challenge to accept the "chaos" of the mismatched squares, the lack of coordination in the colours. I opted for a join as you go method, as my usual method of simply crocheting the squares together was not going to work here, and I again turned to Wilkos Stripes yarn in rainbow colours. Its a relatively cheap mixed fibre yarn, a little scratchy at first but very warm and washes well. The self striping rainbow colours enhanced the patchwork random feel of the squares, and in the end it actually worked up quite well.
To truly make it a "fiddle" blanket though, it needed an assortment of appliques, buttons, and other varied textures. I had mentioned that the blanket was hopefully going to have a garden theme, and one of the ladies at the craft group had kindly donated a bag of flowers, which I sewed into the name squares to look like entwined vines. I added flowers of my own, as well as a fox, rainbow, and squares which spelled out the lady's name. I used the chunkiest buttons I could find in my collection, (and they're really not going anywhere now - very securely attached!!)
Overall, the whole blanket took four weeks and cost only £8 in rainbow yarn. Despite this relatively low cost and me feeling very outside of my comfort zone the entire time, I did feel good when it was finished and I got sent a photo of the lady snuggled under her nice new blanket. A lovely community project which only serves to prove that - if you look for it - you can still find the sense of community in people. :)
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