A Daughter's Loving Arms

These past few weeks have been a little slow on the blogging front. Mainly because my aunt was in town visiting for a while and then we both headed home to PA together. My mom's being going through some medical stuff and I thought it would be fun to surprise her by coming home. In preparing for the trip I wondered what I might be able to knit for my mom so that I could leave it behind when it was time to leave. I've never knit anything for her before, just didn't know what she would actually use/wear. But with everything she was going through medically I thought it might be nice to have something she can wrap her shoulders in or snuggle up with when I'm not there and she needed a little daughterly love. It would need to be washable and while I was in a therapy session (of the on-line yarn story variety) I came across a variegated Comfort that I thought was blue. Although Mom's favorite color is yellow she's really attracted to wearing blue. Most of her wardrobe is some sort of blue. So I purchased four skeins of this lovely, soft, washable yarn from Yarn Market (where I also got this picture of the yarn. Click on it to find out how to get some of your own.) But when it arrived it was apparent that "Sachet Mix" was definitely purple not blue. So what to do??? One of my doctors is having a baby and so I thought maybe I could find a quick knit to make her a blankie to wrap her little one in. I found one on Ravelry that I kind of liked but didn't think it would be big enough so I made some adjustments and cast on. There was still the issue of finding a great yarn for Mom's project. I didn't get a chance to visit any of the LYS before we headed up north so I imagined taking Mom out and having her pick her own yarn. The started blankie came along since it was an easy pattern to work on while chatting with family. Much to my surprise, when I mentioned to Mom that the yarn was almost a project for her, her eyes lit up and she raved at how much she loved it. And she was really digging the pattern so far as well. Luckily for Mom, the pattern was working out to be much narrower than I thought it would so the plan changed again to continue on with the pattern but turn it into a wrap/stole/shrug of some sort for Mom. I was kind of hoping to finish it before I left but that Little Man kept stealing my attention. Can you really blame me? But as it grew, Mom continued to rave about how much she loved it. So it traveled back with me to finish, which was probably a good thing anyway since I didn't have any Soak or Eucalan to soak it in and I was worried about how long it would take to block and dry before I could add the final touches. Would I really have time to finish and leave it with Mom? No. So back home it came with me and into the sink with a bit of Lavender Eucalan. Perfect for the color way doing you think? And then out to the yard to dry in the hot sun. Now it was time for the real fun - seaming up the edges a little to give a little bit of a sleeve so that Mom could use it while quilting and it not fall off. I'm in love with the way it turned out! And I'm sure Mom's going to love it too! It's a bit big on me, but Mom is a bit bigger than me too. And she doesn't like things to be tight on her anyway so this should work well for her. Now all that's left is to wrap it up nicely with a sweet little note that is sure to make Mom cry. Call me cruel, but I love it when I'm able to do that, happy tears of course. I'll be heading back up that way in mid-August and maybe I'll get a few modeled shots with the actual recipient. But for now you've only got me. I'm calling this project "A Daughter's Loving Arms."