The topic of tonight’s post is relatively minor and almost insignificant. On many occasions I would not have even considered it as a potential blog post.
However, it has recently occurred to me that a lot of what I do and take entirely for granted are activities or skills that would be completely unknown to many people. Therefore, this year I am going to make a concerted effort to post about some of the little things that fall under the broad category of life skills.
I made a sampler of different sewing stitches when I was 8 years old. It was a laborious task undertaken in school sewing lessons in Year 3. The sampler is framed and hangs in my sewing room these days. There are 6 different stitches, one of which is blanket stitch.
I don’t think I have ever used blanket stitch in over 50 years since that sampler was completed.
Nevertheless, when I noticed the stitching at the end of a blanket coming unravelled today, I immediately knew that I would mend it using blanket stitch. It was a bit like riding a bike – you never forget.
The blanket is one of a pair that we have owned for 40 years so I guess it is not too bad that it needed some running repairs. I simply threaded a large needle with the unravelled thread and restitched the edge with blanket stitch exactly as I had done on the sampler.
The left hand side of the photo is the existing machined ‘blanket stitch’ and the right hand end is my repairs.
organised castle 
Funny, I go years without using blanket stitch, and then need it several times in one year, as I did over the last 12-15 months!
Always blankets or do you use it for other jobs? You probably have more blankets than I do?:)
Seldom on blankets! No, it’s come up on small craft projects a few times recently–brilliant for piecing together felts. And my warmest memory of using it was for baby booties that I put together for my son while I was expecting him. Though it turned out his feet were already too long for them on day one, the memory still makes me happy.
40 years is an amazing life for just about any item these days, I’m impressed!
Yes, 40 years is pretty good although they are not used every day. I also have a set of single bed blankets that are close to 60 years old. They were my original blankets when I transitioned from a cot to my first bed. Although definitely a bit on the thin side, I have them on the single bed and trundle bed which are used intermittently by our granddaughters.
40 years is an amazing lifespan for just about any item these days, I’m impressed!!!
This confirms the saying “If you keep a thing (the sampler) long enough it will come in handy one day