I'll be announcing the Uniqlo jeans giveaway post-Google et.al blackout (updated to add: no Google blackout, look for their protest note). In the meantime, please enjoy a little weekend DIY project I was forced into during a trip I made with a sister this past weekend to my mom's in Iowa.
First, right off the airplane, we scoured Goodwill for old wool sweaters. I thought, "No problem, Goodwill in Des Moines, Iowa, will be packed full of wool sweaters." Guess what? WRONG. The DIYrs have taken command of all secondhand stores in Iowa. Wool sweaters, beware: you will be pillaged, felted, and remade into pillows, gloves, and, as in our case, toddler blankets:
Then lay out those squares and decide on a pattern. When you're with family, this will take a while. You'll argue about keeping the argyle and lavender squares in a neat diagonal pattern, you'll fight about whether or not to use the grey plaid, and then, finally, you'll all decide to make it bigger. So there goes the perfect diagonal pattern you fought for so dearly. After this grueling decision-making process, pin the squares in strips (but don't pin the strips together yet). Next, watch Downton Abbey online for about four hours and go to bed.
The next day you go buy the rest of your supplies, namely a nice cotton backing for the squares and a pretty patterned material for the back of the blanket. Joanne's in Des Moines was a great resource for this until we got stuck behind a couple of scrapbookers at checkout who were buying about 3,000 sheets of paper that had to be rung up one by one. Damn those scrapbookers. Also, what the hell is scrapbooking?
I'd tell you what to do next but we had a sewing machine malfunction which hindered the completion of our blanket. Instead we traded photos of our squares with another sister on the East Coast, who was also working on a blanket and had a plethora of perfectly square blocks (ours, not so much). She also had a plethora of sweater pillows she had finished, most likely while we were watching Downton Abbey or sleeping. She's the truly talented and dedicated DIYr in the family. Probably, as I'm typing, she's finishing our blanket for us. If you have any questions about this project, please leave them in comments and I'll email the sister whose husband is now plotting to throw away pillows.
We'll be back to our regular 34th Street shopping soon. Happy (maybe) blackout day.
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