In 2019, my Dad died, and then less than 5 months later, my brother's dog was (accidentally) killed and then a week later, his wife died. Nancy had PKD--Polycystic Kidney Disease and had been on dialysis for a long time (7 years?) while waiting for a transplant. Shortly after, I found a bag of purple Bernat Softee Chunky (I think. I can't seem to find any of the labels) at my favourite store in my Mom's small town. I wanted to make a blanket to donate to the dialysis unit where Nancy spent so much time. Purple was her favourite colour.
I started with corner to corner crochet. I found a graph to make a heart in the corner, where I thought I could somehow add her info. However, I had no yarn that worked well with the purple--too smooth, too thin, wrong colour, etc. Then I tried numerous things on the SK155 knitting machine. Nothing was making a blanket that would be big enough to be useful.
I gave it a heavy steaming, to flatten the edges and stretch it out some. It relaxed the texture a bit (no pictures), but I think it's still nice.
I have thought about how to add her name or info. I looked into doing heat transfer with my Cricut. I don't have any experience and I don't know how it'd hold up to be in a hospital facility. I thought about embroidery, but then I'd have to sew some sort of patch on because the blanket can't really be embroidered right on to. Probably expensive. And in the end, no one except maybe some nurses would even know who she was. So I'm leaving it purple; that says enough.
I haven't gotten to donate it yet. I'm not sure if they'll take anything right now. It's ready though, when the time is right. Sign your organ donor card and let your family know. Nancy was in her mid-40s, her daughters were in 16 and 21. An organ donation would have changed their lives.
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