My repertoire has not included restoring a knit afghan-first off-I don't knit, crochet, yes, knit-no, but one of my daughter's friends, Mandy, had a tattered baby afghan and would I please look at it. It had been discarded by mistake and was rescued from the trash pile.
The treasured baby afghan had been a gift from Mandy's father at the birth of her first child, Whitney. Now Whitney was expecting her first baby and Mandy wanted the afghan restored as a surprise.
Here is what Donna brought for me to look at and said "if you don't want to fool with it, just say so"-well, it was an interesting challenge. Most of the damage was in the border but some raveling was in some of the center I would like to have saved. I looked and thought on that afghan for several days. Donna said she would like for it to be "puffy" and I agreed, also lace, she thought and again that sounded good.
On a foray to Joann's I saw a vintagy looking print that I thought would be perfect with birds. Donna said the nursery was gray and pink and the afghan wasn't white-it had a pink cast to it that we wanted to match. But guess what?-All the pinks were too bright, too dark, not the right shade to match the afghan and I cruised through the aisles several times and went home empty handed several times.
I did go back to get the little bird which was a grayish print and thought about painting the whitish background in the pink but when compared with the afghan it took on the pinkish cast.
The center of the afghan was stay stitched all around to keep it from raveling and outside the stitching was cut away but I still hadn't decided how it would be finished. No laces or pink fabrics had shown themselves that had the delicate look I was searching for.
AAhhh-I can crochet, checked out the yarns and voila we found a beautiful soft petal pink and dove
gray that were near perfect.
Before any crochet could be done the damaged sections had to be repaired. To have a perfect match to the afghan, I unraveled enough yarn from the border that had been cut away to kind of weave the holes together and did a pretty decent job. You have to look fairly close to find the repairs.
A crocheted border was added in alternating pink and gray:
After the border and backing were added an old timey tacking was done using the pink and gray yarns. I actually machine bar tacked the yarns onto the newly created quilty afghan so I didn't have to struggle with pulling the yarns through the fabrics.
The little bird fabric is very soft and gives the vintage look and feel the afghan called for.
The back:
Like I said, I hadn't up to this point restored a knit afghan and don't know if I would tackle the job again but I didn't want a family treasure to be either put in the bottom of a drawer or thrown away. There were a lot of hours involved in the mending and then the crocheted border but it was done as though it was being done with one of my own treasures. In fact, while thinking of writing about Mandy's baby afghan, it brought to mind one of mine that I plan to share soon.
By the way, Miss Tenley Blake made her arrival a few days ago and she has a wonderful piece of family history that was given years ago to her little Mama by her great, grandfather.
May God bless you and thank you for stopping by Carolyn's Canvas.
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Carolyn Wainscott
