Cover Image: An old dog.
… An old dog attempting a new trick, that is.
Last year, O asked me to knit him a ‘rainbow’ blanket (he meant colourful, rather than an actual rainbow, which is good because I’m only a beginner knitter) – and I was super happy to oblige!
So, he chose a colourful yarn, and I got stuck in.
As I merrily knitted away – I suddenly had this ‘great’ idea:
I wouldn’t knit a blanket that will only fit him for now. No siree, I would knit him a blanket that will fit him FOREVER. In fact, I will knit a MASSIVE 6ft 5” blanket that O can snuggle under for the rest of his life. He’s tall for 5 years old, so I’m guessing he’ll be that guy whose shoulders you want to sit on at concerts when he’s an adult.
I figured it would be nice if this blanket could go with him when he’s all grown up and leaves home. If he ever has a tough day at work, has relationship troubles, gets the dreaded Man-Flu – anything really, I like the idea that he can snuggle up under this blanket that his Mummy made for him when he was 5, and hopefully feel in some small way like it’s a hug from me.
I have spent 6300 minutes – or, 105 hours of the last 8 months, knitting this blanket for O. I averaged about one row per day, because with M.E – I often didn’t have the energy to keep going after I’d finished one row. I didn’t mind. It didn’t matter if O had a growth spurt during this time, because this blanket was going to be larger than life.
Anyways – yesterday this old dog embarked on a new trick called ‘blocking’. Pans out, knitters around the globe like to soak their freshly knitted treasures, hot off the needles, in water, and then lay them out on foam mats, pinned/wired to the shape/size they should be. Then, voila! It dries in that shape/size and stays that way forever. So, given that my blanket turned out wider at one end than the other, I thought I’d give it a bash and see what happens.
… And what’s happened so far is – I’ve put my back out measuring and pinning the fucking thing. Oops.
I’m too scared to take the pins and wires out now it’s dry, in case it doesn’t hold its shape. So I’m just gonna marvel at my masterpiece on the mat for a while longer while I bite my nails and rub my back! 😂
