This isn’t exactly about procrastination, but here’s my baby blanket story.
Years ago, my friend Pat told me as soon as she found out she was pregnant. I had nearly six months to crochet her a baby blanket. My sister had crocheted dozens of them. I hadn’t.
My sister and I bought pastel variegated yarn, and she patiently taught my a very simple stitch for the body of the blanket. There was to be a simple shell stitch for the edging.
I started crocheting. It wasn’t long before I noticed a mistake a row or two back. I ripped and restitched. A row or two later, another mistake. More ripping and fixing. Then I noticed a mistake further back. Rip, restitch. That went on until I realized that the rows went from tighter to looser, so the outside edges looked wavy. Rip, rip, rip, and restitch.
You get the story. I ripped and restitched the wretched thing for months. All in all, I figure I crocheted enough to cover a hippo.
Finally, Pat had the audacity to go into labor three weeks early. I didn’t have the blanket halfway done. And, sadly, my sister had moved to another state, so she couldn’t help me. She suggested I take it to a mutual friend of ours, who also crocheted.
I gathered up my skeins of yarn, my pitiful half-mutilated/half-done blanket and went to see Judy. Judy said, in her Kentucky drawl, “Honey, I do believe this yarn is getting just a wee bit fatigued.”
Fortunately, I had bought extra yarn.
Dear friend Judy was nice enough to start the whole blasted thing over. She finished it IN A DAY, shell stitching and all.
I was humiliated, but delighted that I could give Pat the blanket before the child was in school. I told her the truth about who made it. After all, I did sew pastel ribbon bows on the corners of the thing.
