I started to crochet in March 2015. I wanted to learn in order to make a phenomenal Peacock Pretty Blanket I’d seen on Ravelry by Kraftling (designer’s site). I don’t always do well at learning to walk before I can run.

The blanket was a big project for a beginner, with over 100 feathers to crochet as well as the fancily-stitched blanket itself. I didn’t even know how to do a double crochet. But my ignorance shielded me, and my enthusiasm kept me going. To a point.

I finished the feathers by July – they took me three months. I’m grateful that past me was better at updating Instagram than she was at updating her Ravelry projects because it gives me a nice accurate timeline of the feather crafting. In a blog post from the time, I also noted that it took an hour per feather – I feel like that would be a 20-minuter now.

I imagine I started the blanket soon after the feathers were finished but I’m very light on evidence. The only pic on Instagram was from the day I realised I’d crocheted a corner right out of existence, in January 2016. So this is ten months after starting.

It’s obvious to me now that I just turned the row too early (more than once, by the look of it) but at the time I remember being genuinely baffled. Remember that before the feathers for this blanket, I’d never crocheted anything more than a long chain. Had no idea about turning for rows, and I was trying to learn on a massive project, in a dark colour. Not what I’d recommend to someone else, put it that way.

A blurry photo from February 2016 marks what I suspect was the finish date – it’s laid out on a towel so had probably just been washed.

After this, the timeline goes dark. I know that I didn’t give up straight away – but I also know that once I started to sew the feathers on, my hatred for sewing made itself very apparent. I can’t find my copy of the pattern now to check if it says ‘sew on’ or ‘crochet together’ – but I sewed. Except I mostly just… didn’t?

The blanket and feathers sat in a bag, in a box, under many other boxes, for five years. It moved house with me. It never left my mind – I’m quite the one for self- imposed guilt over things that actually aren’t harming anyone, and I repeatedly gave myself grief for the extended time out the project was taking.

Truth is, it was just waiting for its moment. We were invited to G’s friends’ wedding in October 2021, and the theme of the wedding was peacock colours. I went back and forth a little on whether it was far too weird to give a labour-intensive, handmade gift to a wedding couple I’d never met. But ultimately it felt like the Right Time.

I hauled it all out and found that at least part of the challenge of adding the feathers had been that I didn’t have an appropriate surface to work on. I’d been trying to make it happen over my knee, or hunched over the bed. Five (and a half) years later, I have a dining table and it was unbelievable how much easier it was to work that way.

Another challenge was the size of my feathers. I crocheted them SO TIGHTLY that they were half the size they were supposed to be. So I couldn’t attach them with a nice overlap, as recommended in the pattern. But I was determined to make it work. No more procrastination, not even productive procrastination.

And so it came to pass, six years after it was begun, that the blanket was complete, and off it went to live with the happy couple who were kind enough to invite a stranger as a plus one to their wedding.

And what do we say instead of ‘It’s not perfect?’. It’s one of a kind, and made with love.