This is a lovely, slightly wonky and very old little crochet blanket. It’s about 120cm square. It was found bundled into a box outside a charity shop a few years ago. Perhaps because of its wonkiness, felting and seams coming open it was only a couple of pounds, probably destined for nothing more than a dog bed.
But the colours are lovely and definitely worth saving.
It has done good service covering a seat cushion. But the damage was getting worse and in desperate need of care and attention before it was too far gone to save. A nice, crochet project after lots of stash busting knitting.
Assessing the damage
One of the squares had come completely adrift (I had the foresight to save it), and others were loose. The blanket is crocheted in wool, apart from some rounds in a pale blue cotton.
Whilst the wool has felted to various degrees the cotton was starting to disintegrate. There were seams coming apart here there and everywhere and also a few random holes.
Plan of Attack
First it was given a good wash. Then to see what stitches were used. It seems to be made up of pairs of half trebles. The missing and damaged rounds of needed to be replaced. After a bit of experimentation with needle size, new rounds of crochet were added and the repaired squares stitched back into place. The stash bag of 4 ply yarns was deployed, using vintage yarns which blend in with the original yarns in the blanket as much as possible. Other, smaller holes were darned, matching the colours as much as possible.
And finally it was just a case of going around the whole thing repairing all the seams.
The Result
After a good steam press to ease out the worst of the wonkiness it’s ready for a good few more years service.
