This year I decided that instead of starting and stopping a hundred projects that I never finish, I want to work on one big, spectacular crafty thing all year.
After a bunch of research, the winner is: a mandala blanket.
My Nana taught me to crochet when I was 10 years old.
I was feeling sad for some reason. My memory (after 35-ish years) is that I was feeling sorry for myself because my parents went out and didn’t take me with them. Nana, my great-grandma, was babysitting.
She taught me to make a crochet chain. I spent all night working on it and by the time my parents got home, I’d turned an entire ball of wool (or, probably, acrylic) into a ginormous chain that would have wrapped around my whole bedroom. Twice.
A mandala blanket is crocheted in the round…just around and around and around until it’s the right size. I love them when they’re a riot of colors and fancy stitches.
I found this crochet-a-long that is long over, but looks like it still attracts lots of crocheters–and the whole pattern is available for free online. It’s gorgeous. GORGEOUS.
And a huge commitment. Not only of time, but money as well. This thing is massive. Big enough to cover a big bed. Which means a LOT of yarn. And if I’m going to put this much work into it, I probably don’t want to use the cheapest cheapy yarn.
There are a ton of bloggers who have blogged their way through crocheting this exact blanket. Here’s a finished one from itsallinanutshell.com:
Told you. Gorgeous.
I love that the project is broken down into 18 parts. Supposed to be 18 weeks, but I’m giving myself a whole year, so if it takes 2 or 3 weeks for each section, that’s okay.
Step one: head over to Michael’s before school starts and get the first skeins I’ll need. Eight days at school, twelve hours of work a day–I figure crocheting might be a good way to unwind at the end of the day.
Maybe.
Maybe I’ll just need to sleep.
We’ll see!