Prickly Pear Bloom

As you all probably know by now I tend to have many, many, many in progress projects going on at any given time, along with other unstarted but oft dreamed about projects that may or may not bring themselves into existence. I think it always demonstrates my desire for something when I have the motivation to start, and actually finish a project for myself, that doesn’t have a deadline determined by an outside party.

Well, I’m happy to say that this was one of those projects.

Sweaters, lovely, softy, snuggly wool sweaters. I had two of these sweaters in my collection of old clothing that I am sure never to wear again but didn’t want to give away, and in two trips to the thrift store we found a pretty nice array of supplementary wool knits. And what an array it was: light blue cableknit lambswool, purple argyle, AWESOME ORANGE, groovy gray with a mint green and blue chevron, and a HUGE gray 100% cashmere jackpot. There’s alot of gray sweaters in this world, did you know?

And by the way, The Husband rocks at thrift store shopping. I may have scored one of these sweaters on my own, but I’m quite certain he found all the rest of them, in probably the same stretch of time. I don’t know why this is, but you give him a set of parameters, and He. Runs. With. It. I tend to get distracted. Shocking, right?

So, the logistics of this blanket? I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I had never sewn with knits before in my life, so I was pretty nervous about it, but it turned out to be not such a big deal as I had feared. I didn’t felt any of the sweaters, although maybe they had been a tiny bit felted in their past lives, I simply don’t know, but there weren’t any unravelling issues. I’m still hoping the whole thing doesn’t spontaneously fall apart, but I feel that way about everything I make.

The blanket is roughly48″x60″, give or take. I cut each sweater square into roughly 13×13″, and pieced together a couple of squares out of arms to get 20 total. I added a strip of cashmere to one short end of the blanket, the bottom cuff of the sweater, because it was Just. So. Soft. that I felt the need for a little extra bit of it. And so that if one of us snuggles up lenthwise beneath this blanket for a nap, that softy cashmere edge can be right up next to that person’s lucky nose. I used a 100% cotton low loft batting and backed the blanket with a vintage white and green floral sheet, which has a bit of polyester in it, but is so soft and smooth.

I basted the layers together with safety pins, and instead of binding the edge like a normal blanket, I finished it by folding the backing over the batting, and turning the sweater top over itself, then sewing the whole sandwich together around the edges. There were a few hairy moments as I did this, when my machine squalled at me and I heard something to the effect of, “Are you freaking kidding me?” as I tried to squeeze 5 layers of varying thickness fabric under the foot. Most of the sweaters were a similar fairly light weight, but the blue cableknit was pretty hefty. And lumpy. So sewing over some of the sweater seams and corners of the edges was a bit tricky. I folded the cashmere edge over so that it was on the backside of the blanket, and handstitched it down like one would normally do for a binding. I’m sure there is probably a better way to go about the whole operation, but I like to rock the boat and make things difficult. Maybe I’ll put a real binding on it someday.

I raided my button stash for some black, gray, orange, blue, and green buttons of various sizes to “tie” the quilt at each square’s corner, and hopefully this will keep the batting in place and prevent much stretching of the sweater pieces. I would like to add a couple more buttons placed randomly because I don’t much like expected regularity, as well as a bit of abstract embroidery to one corner of the blanket, but that will be saved for another day.

This is one of the snuggliest blankets, I’m telling you. The Husband loves it. I came home the other night to find him huddled on the couch, the blanket draped over every inch of him, looking a little bit like a homeless guy. The ginger colored cat likes it a whole lot too, it’s fuzziness prompts him to make biscuits on it before he settles down in our laps. And, all just in time for some crazy cold weather. I was thinking on my way home this evening in the slippery snow how much I was looking forward to wrapping my new sweater blanket around me, and here I sit, snuggly as can be.