Mrs. Graham's Blanket (FO)

I've always wanted to do shorter blog posts but find myself rambling on and on. Well, Wiggle I think is the answer! Because really, you don't get blog posts done with a nursing newborn that wants to be held all the time unless you can do short blog posts. 

We lived across country from my grandparents and our neighbor lady, Mrs. Graham, was more of a grandmother than our grandmother (in a lot of ways!). I used to go over there and watch Dukes of Hazzard, the Love Boat, get ONE lemon drop from the glass chicken candy dish and spend time with Mrs. Graham. Mrs. Graham was always crocheting and had an entire room filled with yarn. A product of the Great Depression, she would save the smallest scraps of yarn and make mishmashed afghans. Sometimes, we'd go over and tease her because it honestly looked like she was crocheting in her sleep.

I learned to crochet when I was seven year's old. I learned to crochet sitting on the floor, facing her big brown leather recliner. She was right-handed and I was left-handed so she just said to mirror what she did. I was a very literal child so if she moved her hook towards herself, I moved mine towards her. This means that if you turn over my crochet, it looks like a right handed person crochet it!

Anyway, Mrs. Graham was already in her late 80's when she taught me to crochet.  She never used patterns, she just crocheted from memory.  It was almost 20 years before I ever crocheted anything using a printed pattern, just repeating patterns she'd taught me. Sadly, though she loved children more than nearly anyone I know, she was never able to have any of her own.  She always crocheting a blanket for any new baby. As she got older, and her eyes got worse, she used the same pattern that she could feel her way through, not needing to be able to see. 

Mrs. Graham passed away 15 years ago. She was in her 90's.  She remembered two passages of Haley's Comet - when I was 9 in 1986, she said she just remembered as a little girl when Haley's Comet passed by in 1910. She was a sharecropper in the Great Depression and during the Dust Bowl. She and her husband moved into the house I met her in when they were built right after World War II. She made blackberry and peach cobbler. She drove a brown station wagon and would take us to potlucks at her Pentacostal church and buy us Happy Meals at McDonalds. Near the end of her driving days, she'd have to have me tell her the color of the lights if it was raining. I made her an afghan, just rows and rows of double crochets. My Mom said she always had that in her brown recliner. When I came home from college one year, she gave me a music box - it's a log cabin music box her husband gave to her.  I have that and a picture of her.

I knew that Wiggle needed one of Mrs. Graham's blankets. Like many projects, I didn't get this one done before Wiggle was born. One day I set Wiggle on the bed near the unfinished blanket and he immediately started to wiggle around in it. I snapped this picture with my phone.

I took that to mean that this blanket passed the Wiggle Bug test.

And now it's finished and Wiggle Bug has a Mrs. Graham blanket of his own. 

Project details:
Pattern: Mrs. Graham's Blanket
Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Dreambaby DK, yellow 
Modifications: 5 skeins, until it looked like the right size
Yardage total 2013: 1693

Comments

[Kathy]

So, I'm just commenting that this is NOT a short post!!! hehehe

[kate]

Hey, you stole my comment ;-)

Wonderful story. I can relate to not knowing your own grandparents very well as my parents are both immigrants. However I was never fortunate enough to find a Mrs. Graham - you were so lucky and what great memories.

And Wiggle already looks more grown up!

[Rue]

Another great story (and great Wiggle pics)!

As an aside? Do you have a wrap carrier? That can be a great way to hold a young baby and free up your arms. Tadpole and I both enjoyed the moby wrap for several months.

[melissa]

oh i love this story so so much. everyone needs a mrs. graham...

love the blanket and oh wiggle is completely beautiful lying there asleep. i just want to kiss his little head!