As all little princesses grow up to realize, most fairy tales don’t work out quite how we planned. In my case, it was my Brava blanket in Fairy Tale. It was originally conceptualized as one large, granny square design, but a wicked witch cast a spell over the stitches and the square began puckering. Being too busy (i.e. lazy) to start over, I finished the imperfect square and began another one, with the noble intention of piecing a total of 6 squares together into one large blanket.
Months later, the 6 squares were finished, but the plot thickened with the recent addition of a promise to crochet all three of my nephews and niece a blanket each (a vow made in a rash moment of affection for the darlings). Natalie and Caden are old enough to insist on choosing their own color schemes, but I could take advantage of Jack, the happy-go-lucky 3-yr old.
The manipulation went as follows:
Me: “Hey, Jack! What color do you want your blanket to be?”
Jack: “Hmmm … orange… and pink … and yellow .. and black!”
Me (panicking): “Ok … let’s try again. What is your favorite color?”
Jack (with his little arms spread wide): “All the colors in the whole world are my favorite!”
Me: “Great! So you want a purple blanket?”
Jack: “Yeah!”
Unfortunately, I discovered a deep, insurmountable aversion within me to piecing squares together, so I ended up only connecting two of the squares, which left me with 5 mini blankets.
So the manipulation continued:
Me: “Hey Jack! How would you like FIVE blankets instead of one? Then when you wet the bed or lose one, you will have back ups!”
Jack (enthusiastically): “Yeah!”
Thank God for joyful, oblivious babies who will love and redeem even the most wayward project!
Uneven finishing? I don’t care! I’m only three!
Finishing suckssss
Whoa … five blankets is a heavy load for a little fellow.
Wheeee! I can’t wait to pee on this!
