Alison's blanket

Remember the blanket from our very first post? It was called Elsie and Joe Get Things Done, and it's from April 06. I can't seem to link to it, so if you're interested, you'll have to go look. It's a blanket that I sewed together by machine from rectangles cut from felted sweaters. We got these sweaters for free, and some of them were pre-felted for us. My friend Alison took a liking to this blanket, and I agreed to make another one.

She and I have been trolling local Salvation Army stores for months now, looking for the right combination of colors. Sometimes we find the sweaters already felted, which is a good sign that they will felt well. Other times we've bought sweaters nobody else is likely to buy, because they have great gaping holes or stains.

And we have even bought perfectly good sweaters, with the sole intention of shrinking them and cutting them apart. We think we have almost enough now. Here is a rough mock-up of what the blanket might begin to look like. The sweaters are laid out on my lawn, to get an idea of how much contrast we have and how much we need.


We think we need more red, and a nice grassy green would be nice. Let me know if you have any old sweaters you'd like to donate to Alison's blanket.

The giant ball of yarn is getting smaller. This is a swatch:
I have officially run out of blue yarn for my mittens:
And no, I don't have anything that comes close to matching this yarn. I'm afraid the thumb is going to be either gray or green Lopi. You can see why this project has stalled out.