Broken-hearted

More than a year without blogging - a year full of shock, tears and disbelieve. Since I wrote my last post one thing has happened that changed my life, my feelings towards life and left me utterly devastated. My beloved father died from a heart attack on Whitmonday last year while spending a short holiday together with my Mum in the Netherlands. He was just 64 years old, a tall, strong and good looking man with zillions of ideas what to do the next coming years. He had retired just a couple of months before he died and his joy and delight about this new period in his life was entirely infectious.

I remember that I talked to him on the phone just a few days before he died. About this and that, nothing special, we just exchanged snippets of our daily routine. I told him that I had just cleaned and oiled our old wooden garden table and that we probably needed a new table soon. He was so enthusiastic and full of energy that he suggested to build a new table for us. He told me about a construction manual for a table he had seen in a magazine. He had so many plans ...

 

The months following the funeral were very difficult for our family. We had always relied on the strength and the power of my father, he had been the one who organised everything, he was the back-up of my mother, my sibs and me. I was shocked and dumb for many months. I couldn't find the words expressing my feelings towards what had happened. The big problem for me was that the world didn't stop turning, not for one day. We took a few days off from work and the children out of school but then life went on as if nothing had happened. 
 

We were left to step back into the world, where everything looked the same but for us, every movement and every breath felt weighted down by this stifling cloud of sadness.  How were we supposed to function?

There is really nothing good that comes out of the death of someone you love, but the past months I have learned that the intensity and groundlessness of the pain you feel is a testament to the love you shared. And while I know that I will never arrive at a point in my life where I’m alright with the fact that my father has gone so early, I know that I am immensely lucky to have loved and been loved that much by anyone.  

More than a year has past now, we have managed all the difficult days, his birthday, Christmas, Whitmonday and the day of his death.And slowly, very slowly I feel that I want to step back into the world. I started again to sing in the choir and I decided to start blogging again.

I didn't stop crocheting during the past year, oh no, not at all. My crochet projects helped me a lot to stay afloat. I needed my yarn and my hook even more than before. Hooking time helped me to relieve my sorrows and pain, to calm down and find some peace of mind.

I had a basket full of yarn oddments that my grandmother had left me when she died more than 9 years ago.

At that time I didn't know what to do with the yarn, I didn't do any needlework but I couldn't throw it away because my grandmother had loved knitting so much. So I kept the yarn for no real purpose. Quite a couple of years ago I started to crochet some granny squares, having a blanket in mind, but my squares looked all wonky. I stopped again.

Last year, after my father's death, I felt an urge to do something with that neglected yarn of my grandmother. I wanted to crochet a blanket that would absorb all my sorrow, a blanket full of reminiscence that would keep us warm. As you can see in the pictures the colours are all different kinds of blues, greys, ecrus and some green. I unpicked all the squares I had already crocheted. I realised that I had made some mistakes right at the beginning and started anew. It was such a comforting project, every day I was looking forward to the evening when I could just sit on the sofa and delve into my yarny comfort.

 I was so happy that I unpicked all the old squares, the difference between the old squares and a new one is evident, isn't it?

 

It was such a wonderful project for me at that time, a very simple pattern, using yarn that was 'family' and made me feel connected to all the ones that I had lost. I made rapid progress, though it was a little tricky to use all the yarn because it was so different in thickness an quality. Sometimes I had to use two strands of yarn and sometimes I just changed a hook size.

To connect the squares I had to buy some balls of yarn and I chose a light grey for it. 

The blanket looks like an old school blanket from the seventies, doesn't it? I really love, love, love it. It is old-fashioned and oh, so cosy. The blankets I made before were all made from Stylecraft Special DK and this is the first blanket made from wool/acrylic mixes. The feel is so much nicer, much softer and warmer that I decided not to buy any new purely acrylic yarn anymore. 

This blanket is much used here in our house, especially the male part of my family prefers this blanket in more muted colours.

 Oh, I am so glad to have written a blog post again and I hope that you haven't forgotten me. I wanted to write much earlier but I just didn't know how. It was a very difficult post for me, the next one will be much easier I guess. I am happy to be back again, I will show you more things I have done during the past months soon.

All the best for you and the ones you love,
Viola