A nap blanket knit

I may have shown you this vintage 1970s handknit blanket a few years ago, but just in case...

This is the blanket that lives on the pullout sofa at our cottage.  It's got orange in it because from approximately 1973 to 2012 when I took matters into my own hands, the floor to ceiling windows in the living room were bracketed by bright orange curtains, the height of interior decor glam from that earlier time.  (After I changed them for floral ones, a frequent visitor to a neighbour's cottage expressed sadness because the orange was visible through the trees from the middle of the lake, serving as her landmark for nearing 'home'.  My point exactly.)  The original sofa was similarly fashionable in bright green slubbed plaid, with some orange in it and I think dark brown too.  Yep, you just go ahead and picture that while I get the next photograph set up.

Okay! here we are.

The stitch is one you will instantly recognize for its popularity in blanket knitting.  I am not even going to look up the name of it, because I am ignoring a ton of tidying and unpacking to write today's post, and because you will probably know it anyway, heh.  Suffice to say it is super easy and produces this very pretty, stretchy fabric.  It is perfect for naps.

There are several homey things at the cottage that were contributions from a visiting aunt.  The sheets that hang in front of two doorless closets were selected, and a fold-over for the curtain rod stitched down, by this aunt.  I love, LOVE these two sheets, which are striped in true 1970s fashion but in fabulous still-current colours that match the rest of the mostly-found decor in these two rooms... I am endlessly grateful to this aunt for preserving them for our enjoyment today.

But the blanket is a two-aunt project.  The closet-curtain aunt, and the one who owned the cottage and invited her to stay in the summertime.  The two of them would sit down on the green sofa in the evenings and knit away at their respective panels, perhaps thinking of future sleepy guests who might one day curl up underneath it for a much-needed nap after breathing in fresh air under the hemlock trees and swimming for hours under the hot sun beaming from a cloudless sky... sigh.

(Can you tell that I'm writing this from my condo desk, as someone nine stories up prunes dead blossoms from their terrace planters and tosses them down onto the ferny leaves planted in front of my window?)

When they were done and had stitched all the panels together, they added orange tassels to the points produced by their stitch pattern:

It goes without saying that the yarn they used is acrylic... from my experience as a person whose own cottage knitting - in wool - was partially eaten by moths there, I can say with confidence that it was the right choice for this blanket.  After all, it sits out all year, even after we've closed up.

We're almost out of nap opportunities for this summer, but isn't it nice to think that those aunts will be keeping us cosy again next year, as they have since those relaxing evenings forty years past?


And that's me for today.  Hope you're having a wonderful day and I'll see you tomorrow!