Wedding – The Pink Daisy Blanket

In recent years, I was exceedingly lucky to have a number of supportive loved ones who helped me make my way to Ryan Somma. One of those individuals is my friend Ann. When it came time for my wedding, I wanted to thank her for her contribution to my happiness. All the laughter she brought me with her stories and observations. The times she let me galvanize my resolve by listening to grievances she had heard dozens of times before. And most of all, the times she made me field tough questions– the kind whose answers are hard to say aloud even though they are surprisingly common-sense.

At Ann’s wedding she designed and constructed handbags for each of her bridesmaids. Her creations proved to be so popular that after her wedding, Ann was able to build a business off of her designs. I decided even though the bar was high, that I would like to hand make something as well. I don’t sew and I know very little about handbags. I can, however, crochet.

Pattern
Ann loves daisies, so I scoured the Internet for a daisy crochet pattern. That’s when I found Krochet Krystal. The site shares a free pattern for a beautiful daisy square. There’s a small (and uplifting) catch! In return for the pattern, you are to crochet at least one square and mail it back. The squares are sewn together and donated to hospitals and charities in the Buffalo, New York area. The effort has quite an impressive following and daisy squares have been mailed in from all over the world!

Colors
For colors, I chose black, a light pink and a bright pink. My inspiration for the color palette is drawn from one of Ann’s own classic handbag lines.

Color Inspiration from Handbags

Construction
I started the daisy effort in November 2009. Now my recipient was Ann. I didn’t want to just turn over anything. I had to practice first! I made seven daisies in blue. Once I was satisfied I had the hang of it, I moved on to the pink.

The daisy blanket proved to be the most extensive of all our wedding DIY projects. Even near the end of the daisy effort, each square was still taking me between one and two hours. I needed forty and as time ticked by, I had to squeeze in daisy making whenever I could. I worked on daisies while we watched TV (but never during Lost– Lost required complete attention). I worked on daisies in the car. I worked on the daisies during ZJ’s Super Bowl party. I even worked on a daisy on the floor of the Virginia Air and Space Museum while I waited to see Avatar in 3D IMAX.

Working on a Daisy Waiting for Avatar 3D (Photo by Ryan Somma)

Despite all that diligence, it wasn’t looking good. So I recruited the most prolific crocheter I know:

My mother!

Crochet is like breathing to my mother and still tried and true, she volunteered to take on the less fun part. When I finished a batch of squares, I shipped them to Occoquan. Mom would weave in the loose ends, surround each square with single crochets and stitch them together. We would send pictures of our work back and forth and it was exciting to see everything come together through team work!

Alas, Mom and I still fell short of the March 20th wedding date. We had 30 daisy squares completed and 20 of them sewn together. But it was enough to present to Ann and give her a preview of what’s to come.

Final Afghan
This past weekend, I met Ann in Blacksburg, Virginia for her birthday. I was able to hand over a pot of a succulents from her bouquet (which are still growing!) and…after seven months– the pink daisy blanket!

Finished Blanket

Closeup of Squares

Blanket in Use

Ann and I live eleven hours away. While I worked on the daisy blanket, I couldn’t help but think about why I was working on it. I relived happy memories and thought about all the reasons I had to be grateful for the friendship. Now that the blanket is finally done, I do believe I’m going to miss working on it. 🙂