Grandpa's Blanket and a Life in Crochet

I taught myself to crochet while in high school with a granny square blanket from a kit. I was proud as punch of this kit. It was one of the first things I bought with money from my first real non-babysitting job. It was 1970's brown and gold. There were two pattern choices with the kit, and I chose the one with single and half double crochet squares. It was pretty darn close to perfect, even if the squares looked rounded on the sides more than I wanted. I could not understand what I was doing wrong but it was good enough that when I sewed the squares together, they were most amazingly, square. Success and no one helped me, not with one single stitch.

Next I made the other granny square pattern from the kit, in a rich forest green and cream yarn from Eatons Department store. It was 100% acrylic, but soft like butter. The pattern was solid double crochets down the sides of the squares, no chain spaces, just double crochets, chained corner, growing by a couple stitches on each side of each row. The squares were mostly green, broken only by a double row of cream about 2/3rd of the way out from the centre of each square. I recall having a lot of yarn, so I just worked the squares to the size I wanted them rather than the size the pattern asked for, and instead of sewing those large squares together as the pattern said, I worked them together with a single crochet in the cream. This blanket was my pride and joy. It was a pattern I changed and adjusted to make it my own. My colours, my size, my join.

After this came doily season. My maternal grandmother and my dear Aunt Lorraine absolutely loved doilies, and they knew my mom wanted some new ones. They gave mom their Elisabeth Hiddleson pattern books and once I had seen them, I wanted to try some too. They sent along a booklet with very easy patterns, and smaller doilies for me to try, and away I went. The three of them, Grandma, Auntie and mom, were very willing enablers, freely giving me advice on what size thread I would want to work with and what size hooks I would need. I went off to the city and picked up doily thread and hooks in abundance.

By the time I left highschool, I was an experienced crocheter, having worked many many intricate doilies from Mrs Hiddleson's challenging patterns. My paternal Grandmother asked if I would make a ripple stitch afghan for Grandpa.
Eatons was still carrying yarn, and I knew it was good stuff, so this very simple ripple afghan was made from that inimitable very, very good acrylic. It remained on the back of Grandpa's chair till the day he died when Grandma put it on his bed. After her passing, it came back to me.

Of all these wise women who led me to strings, only my mom remains. Only one blanket remains.

The gold and brown blanket literally disintegrated when the boys were still small. The strands of yarn just gave up the ghost. After washing one day, it just was full of separations and broken strands, and though I tried to keep it going, it met its end shortly thereafter.

The green one met it's end about 5 years ago. The blanket had been filched for the bachelor pad, and somehow the bachelors tore a strand of yarn, and managed to pull the stitches out along a couple of rows. One square was a huge mess of tangled yarn before it was brought to me to reapir. I put it aside for sometime when I had time, but time never came and I sent it to blankie heaven. I've always regretted tossing the green blanket. It was soft and warm and just got better with each wash.

As you can see by the picture, Grandpa's blanket soldiers on. It is in full time use in the living room. It doesn't need washing as often as it did while the boys were growing and the cat has taken a liking to it, but each and everytime I wash it, it looks and feels as good as when it was new. There is no relaxing of the fibres from the heat of drying in the dryer. In fact, the dryer pulls the strand together. In a lot of ways, it acts like there is some wool in there. Hard to say, but back in the day, not every item was labeled as it must be today.

Eatons went out of the yarn business sometime just after this blanket was completed in 1980, and then Eatons itself filed for bakruptcy in 1999.

The blanket and the memories of the people, places, and a beginner's success,live on. They inspire me still.