Once in a while, an idea makes itself known to you in such a way that you know, without a doubt, that you can’t say no. Some ideas seem ok at first, then you forget about them. Others never appeal. But some ideas are so strikingly good, so inspirational, that you have no choice.
And often those ideas come from other people.
English blogger, Mooncalf, hit upon an idea so fabulous recently that RoseRed put it to me and we both knew it had to happen. There was not really any choice in the matter. Do you know the Babette blanket? It’s crocheted, so if you’re a knit only kind of person it might not have crossed your radar. Here’s what it looks like.
It’s a granny square blanket, basically, but with a difference. It’s filled with granny squares in a range of sizes, each placed according to a set out pattern. The original blanket is knit in 125 squares made of Koigu. Let us not discuss how much that would cost. I was never going to make it in Koigu so let’s just move right along.
The thing that is most off putting about Babette is that with all those colour changes, it’d be kind of a pain to sew in all the ends and construct it. Not to mention the way that choosing all those colours is just fraught with danger if you’re not absolutely convinced of your ability to choose matching colours. So for a long time, Babette has seemed unattainable to me.
The Ms Mooncalf had her astoundingly good idea, the kind that makes you sit up and think, hello, why has no one thought of this before?
What you do, for any granny square or other shaped blanket, is choose one of the Regia Kaffe Fasset self striping sock yarns that comes with a range of specially chosen colours. That way you know that the colour choices are bound to be genius and you eliminate the need to sew in a eleventy bazillion ends! RoseRed has started hers. True, you don’t get quite the neat and tidy beginning to each colour change, but you know, that’s a small price to pay for what will ultimately be an amazingly good blanket (and machine washable!)
I collected my bag of ten balls of Regia from RoseRed yesterday (who had ordered it from Mooncalf’s own LYS in England for NEXT TO NOTHING – no really, this whole blanket is costing me a mere AUS$36!!) and I cast on right away.
I love it. I am utterly besotted. I’ve done nothing but crochet squares for the last twenty four hours.
So much so that I am considering dropping everything else I have planned for the next little while and focussing on this entirely.
Right now, I can’t imagine anything else i want to make more. I’m even sewing in the ends as I go, after every square! I realised today that doing so is giving me a sense of ultimate control over my life. If the ends are sewn in, I feel like everything is in order. (Let’s not discuss the washing that hasn’t been folded up or the the state of the dining table). Everything is fine as long as I keep sewing in those ends.
Fourteen down. One hundred and ten or so to go.
Easy.
Bells
