My blanket solution for fuzzy thinking

This vintage twin-size Esmond Slumberest blanket has been languishing in my “mend it” pile for three years now.

Its nicest feature? It’s Canada-mint pink on one side, and Wedgwood blue on the other. (My camera is having trouble getting the colors right! It’s really pink. Not peach.) The two layers of color are meshed together through the entire fabric, not just sewn together at the edges. I’m not quite sure how they did that!

It’s wool, I think. Perhaps very slightly shrunken wool, to judge from the way the label doesn’t lie flat. Maybe part wool and part rayon? The label doesn’t say. But not a modern acrylic for sure. I believe Esmond got bought out by Bates sometime in the ’40s, before acrylic blankets were a thing. Don’t quote me on that!

Alas, the original blanket binding is long gone. You can see the pinked edges there, and the stitching holes where the binding used to be.

And why has this lusciously fuzzy and warm blanket been languishing forlornly in my mending pile for three cold New England winters in a row?

Because . . . because . . . I can’t believe I thought this . . . somehow I thought that all four sides needed to be bound.

And I couldn’t find two packages of the same color of vintage blanket binding. Not in three years of looking.

Fuzzy thinking!

When I finally actually read the directions on one package of pale blue binding, it dawned on me. “Cut into 2 even lengths. . . . ”  it says. “Place the raw edges of blanket inside folded blanket binding . . .”

Oh.

Did I feel dumb.

Once the mental fuzz cleared away, finishing this blanket was easy.

The original binding may have been very narrow, to judge by the placement of those old stitching holes. At any rate, all the bindings I had were wide enough to cover up the label. So I picked off the label. Then I hand-basted the binding over the top and bottom pinked edges and zigzagged it down by machine.

The corners got tucked in neatly and slipstitched closed.

And the label was zigzagged back on.

Fuzzy blanket: back in service!

Fuzzy thinking: banished. Till next time, that is. I hope it doesn’t take three years to sort it out then!