Sunday 12 December 2010

Update about Mum's blanket - Number 473

I know you must be sick of these, god knows I am, but I feel like I need to keep posting about it on here because blogging about the blanket seems to galvanise me into action and I start working on it like a mad woman.

Sometimes when I think about this blanket I start to hyperventilate because I think about the prospect of not getting it finished on time. I know that really, I will finish it, it might mean a couple of nights with very little sleep but it will get done, purely because it has to. I’ve always been a bit of a deadline addict, I was never one of those people who finished their essays two weeks before they were due in, I was last minute Annie. But I never missed a deadline and I’m holding on to that fact at the moment.

I somehow managed to join all the squares together. I don’t really know how I did it because the granny stripe squares didn’t have nice little stitches for me to use when joining together so I just fudged it and randomly stuck my hook in where it seemed right and soon I had them all joined together nicely as shown in this picture.


Now.

I know you can see it. I can see it too. No I didn’t mean for some of the squares to be in the wrong direction. Yes I did beat my puny little fists desperately on the bed when I realised my mistake. Yes I did use some fairly foul language. I have no idea how it happened, I took a photo of if all laid out before I started joining them together and I kept checking the photo so I’m not entirely sure at which point my brain just decided to give up completely.

Could I face unpicking them even though it drives me a little bit mad to look at?

No. To unpick it would have been admitting defeat in some way shape or form and I worried that if I did that I might end up giving up on the blanket altogether. And then I remembered something that my Mum told me many years ago – when the Amish are making their quilts they always put in a deliberate mistake because no-one is perfect except for God. Now we know how I feel about God but I am taking this message to heart and I am telling myself over and over again that this mistake is a good thing. A deliberate thing. It does offer me some comfort because I’m yet to produce something crocheted that doesn’t have a mistake in it somewhere – this neatly explains it all away – those mistakes should be in there! Excellent.

So I felt rather smug about finally getting the squares joined together and was feeling pretty good about the whole thing and I knew I had some weekends to spend on it and all was well in the world. Until I spent a weekend at Mum’s making sure she didn’t go mental from the snow-enforced cabin fever which meant I couldn’t work on it. This was nightmarish because it meant that I lost my rhythm and I again got overtaken by the fear because I knew what came next would be a challenge – doing an edging.

This called for a case of fudging again and I decided to feverishly whack my hook in any old place and do a row of DC all the way round. So far it seems to be working and from here on in it’s just plain sailing, right?!

*sigh*

I really don’t love this blanket you know.

8 comments:

  1. I can only see one square that's the wrong way if that makes you feel any better?

    That's such a good little fact to know ... but is it just me that thinks the Amish are being a bit cheeky saying "no-one's perfect but God (but we have to put DELIBERATE mistakes in our quilts, because we are perfect really)" - a bit like when people describe themselves as modest .. Oh so you didn't really mean it when you said you're not that clever/pretty/funny?

    Am I an old cynic?!

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  2. Every crochet blanket that I've made has a mistake in it. Not because I'm Amish, but because mistakes happen, and it's crap and infuriating but then at the end of the day, the blanket still works, right? And your mum's going to love it anyway, despite having one square the other way around, because you've MADE IT for her.
    xxx

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  3. Well I have to admit it would bug me, Amish sayings or not. If I had taken such time and trouble to make a lovely blanket like that, then I would want it to be as near perfect as I could make it and would laboriously unpick it. I would then get fed up half way through, shove it in a cupboard where it would fester and bug me until I had to get it out and finish the job properly. But that's me... not a perfectionist at all, nothing I make is Perfect, but I do my best.

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  4. I love your blanket! It's the imperfections that make things like this more special - because they are 100% handmade by a human. It looks great don't worry. xxx

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  5. It only looks like one square to me too - would it be a huge job to just unpick it and turn it? I freely admit I know sod all about crochet so the answer to my question is probably a resounding yes!

    Anyway, I like a slight quirk in a pattern so I think it will look just perfect :)

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  6. I'm so gonna keep that little saying close to hand, and I may even attach it to the handmade gifts that I send to people.
    Last night I discovered that I was a row out on a cross stitch pattern I'd been designing. I'd worked for HOURS on it - I'm sure that you can imagine my frustration. It's now hiding away until I can bring myself to unpick a thousand and one stitches(maybe a slight exaggeration).

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  7. Aaaah I can feel your frustration but I'm loving this blanket so much that I think the one square just makes it all the more special x

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  8. Those are some delightful squares! I knitted a granny blanket over the past year, but also made a mistake when sewing it together. But I couldn't face unpicking it, so just left it. The mistake just proves that I'm human.

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