Something finished

Finally, FINALLY, I have finished this massive repair job.  I finished the sewing yesterday  The sewing of this consisted of breaking the chain posts, stitching all around the edge of the triangles and using crochet thread, chain stitching the chain posts again.  Not the whole blanket (which is a double sized one), but in some areas I had to do big patches.   Happily, for the first time in weeks, the rain stopped and we have a week of fine days ahead.

That meant that I was able to wash this last night and put it out on the lawn to dry.  

After some research, I read that the best ways to clean something like this were: borax, oxyclean, vinegar and sunshine.  

This was DIRTY.  It smelled dirty; old dirty.  So I first soaked it in hot water and borax.  It looked like I was making tea.  Rather than let it soak for a long time in that brown water, I changed it after about 30 minutes and did another borax soak.  Still kind of looked like tea.  Then I rinsed it.  Still brown water coming off.  So then I soaked it in hot water and oxyclean for about another 30 mins or so.  That really made it start to look lighter.  Then I rinsed it twice in plain water (still colour coming out), soaked it for another 30 mins or so in water and vinegar and then rinsed it twice more.  Then this morning, I lay it out on the lawn in dappled sunlight where it lay all day.  The results:

 So much better.  It looks and feels clean.  Washing it also means that the colour is now almost exactly the same as the thread I used to make repairs.  Still not perfect, but this is an OLD piece.  I know that sun can be too damaging, but I think it was necessary this once to get rid of those strange little stains that weren't  quite gone, and it's too delicate to hang on the line to dry.

I spoke to the woman who owns it last night, and I'll take it around next week.  I wanted to make sure that it had time to dry completely, and I need to do some checks after washing it to make sure that there wasn't any damage done while washing it.  Those little chain posts between the triangles are so fragile. This is so pretty.  I started trying to work out the pattern this morning while I had a free moment.  I'm not used to such small crochet hooks and threads, and I can't remember how to make bobbles and I loaned my best crochet stitch book to a friend.  I know I could look it up on the internet...

In other exciting (not) news, the break in the weather meant that I was able to spend most of today cleaning our car inside.  Looks lovely now.  I also did haircuts for Matt and the boys, paying particular attention to Oscar who has prom tomorrow night.  (photos to follow).