Welsh Street Tales

My mother started an Afghan a long time ago.

So long ago I have no memory of her working on it. Not that I paid close attention to those things, but I surprise myself at details I do remember.

I found these granny squares in my initial “purge” of the house but I didn’t have the heart to toss them or the rest of the yarn into textile recycling.

The yarn was a mixture of vintage and newish (10yrs to present).

Most of the squares were crazy colors, ringed in brown.

There are some that were not,so I kind of thought this was an Afghan she was making out of leftover bits from other projects. She often created blankets like that with leftover yard from baby blankets that she made for family and friends.

The color scheme is a little wacky, but I know how to crochet and I’ve made several projects of my own over the years. I stopped in 2011 when I met my husband and found myself too busy for hobbies. That lead to babies and marriage and my losing interest in crochet.

Until I was in the basement of parents house confronted with bags of discount yarn, crochet hooks, and her undone project as well as my own project abandoned in 2011.

I ended up not throwing out a single skein of yarn. My sentimental heart is half the reason my parents house is still full of what some might call a bunch old useless shit of very little value. I’ve digressed….

So I decided to finish this blanket. To do this I had to bring the project home. I wasn’t sure where I was going with the project so I brought a bunch of yarn with me as well as the project I had abandoned years ago. This included the green wicker basket I remember her using to hold yarn when I was a kid. I also brought my wayward project in a sewing bag. As expected my husband did not appreciate my heart warming attempt at finishing the blanket (nor the additional project I brought home). He’s not wrong. I have a tendency to hoard things and not finish projects as planned.

This will be different….

So I set to work. Some squares were clearly not part of project, so I had to rework them. Always having enough yarn to do what I wanted to do, I hope I have enough brown yarn to finish the blanket

Then I came up with a plan.

With some changes in the square placement due to my inability to attend to detail, this is what I’ve come up with.

I’ve finished the squares and I’m putting them together, slowly (distraction?laziness?).

While in Ireland I found the blanket that very seriously must be the mama blanket to the unfinished treasure I found in the basement.

Happily living in Lisanerin, Ireland since god knows when, it kept granny and uncle Denny and Daddy and whoever had ventured into that room for rest, warm.

To be continued….