Baby Blanket

During the Washington trip I actually did engage in a weaving related activity. I did not just go to The Textile Museum.

I took with me the baby blanket I had just finished weaving and crocheted an edging around it. I had done this on a blanket a few years ago and liked the appearance of it. I used the same acrylic yarn on that blanket as I did on this blanket. I only changed the colors from lavender and pale yellow to baby blue and pale yellow. And I changed the size of the squares from 5” to 2 ½”.

On that earlier baby blanket I had zigzagged the raw edges with my sewing machine. Then I had made a hand-turned ½” hem, turning it under ¼” to hide the zigzagged edge. When I crocheted the edges, I crocheted into the hem, as well as into the selvedge lengthwise edges. I did not like this particularly as the hemmed edges seemed too bulky. When I wove the blanket, I could have used a finer thread for weaving the hems, but I did not have any acrylic yarn any finer than what I was weaving with. And I did not want to weave it with something like cotton sewing thread. I was afraid that that might affect the washing in a way I would not like. So I tried something different with this blanket.

I did zigzag the raw edges with my sewing machine. This time, however, I did not turn those edges under. I simply crocheted directly into the fabric, taking a deep enough pick with the crochet hook to cover the zigzagging. This did create a slight bulge at those two edges, but it looks much better than the version where I actually made a hem.

I did 7 rounds of crochet. Instead of crocheting round and round, however, I returned in the opposite direction whenever I reached the end of a round. This seems to make the crochet edge look a little more balanced.

I did the first two rows in single crochet. Then I alternated a filet crochet row with a single crochet row. I did this a second time. I put in the single crochet rows to give the edging a bit of stability. But the third time, I did only the filet crochet row and that was it. Nothing particularly fancy. After all, it is for a little boy!

I have to admit that crocheting round and round does get to me after awhile. I finished the last round on the ride home. I thought I would never finish. But I desperately wanted it done, finished, kaput by the time we arrived home. I made it with about 30 minutes to spare.

I still have a little bit of trimming of some tiny bits and pieces, but I think it will wash and press quite nicely. Yes, I am going to press the acrylic………

I have no pictures of this to share yet. I arrived home to a very sick computer. She is now in the computer hospital being, hopefully, fixed. But here are the directions are used for the filet crochet rows:

3 ch (counts as 1 dc), skip first sc, 1 dc into next sc, *1 ch, skip 1 sc, 1 dc into each of next 2 sc; rep from * to end, turn.