Wooly blankets

A couple of years ago I decided to knit a patchwork blanket for a friend's 40th birthday, which I then ended up barely finishing in time for his 41st!  And, being honest, I didn't finish it very well, it was very much a bung it all together any which way kind of business by the time I was finishing.  And it turned out to be totally unappreciated by said friend too, who I think barely even noticed it was there and almost certainly never used it.  Through a various range of circumstances, it has ended up back in my house with a few other things I am looking after for him and I told my brother (who was completely in love with the blanket and throughly disgusted that my friend appreciated neither the blanket nor the work that went into it) that if it wasn't missed, I would give it to him.  I can always knit my friend a jumper or something he might actually want.  But a few weeks ago I had visitors who had never seen the finished blanket so I dragged it out to show them.  And since then I've discovered it is so much better than any other blanket I have for curling up on the couch with.  You don't even realise how cozy and warm you are until you want to get up and the (comparative) chill of the air hits you.  I took a pattern for a baby blanket and made it lots bigger which means I hadn't taken account of the fact that it's so heavy it is completely dragged out of shape all the time.  And since my sewing/finishing skills are just barely above non-existent it has at least one hole in it already.  I will fix all that up sometime as well as perhaps blocking it properly and adding a small border around the edge.  But in the meantime, I'm enjoying snuggling under it during the cold weather and my brother may just have to wait a long time before he gets his hands on it.

 

I read a book a while ago called the Friday Night Knitting Club.  Although it was a novel it also, as far as I remember, included a pattern for making an afghan (which was knit by the various characters through the course of the book) out of various squares.  I'm a bit annoyed with myself that that book was mistakenly put into the charity shop pile before I had a chance to try it out but given how much I love this patchwork blanket, I can definitely see more of the same in my future.  But with bigger squares.  Each of those little ones took between 20 and 30 minutes to knit (I'm not a fast knitter)!