International Blanket: Finished for Now

I began making this blanket in a fit of anxious necessity after hearing that I didn’t get into the two PhD programmes I had applied to in the USA. In January, 2013. I had some grey wool leftover from another project in Korea, and I watched a Youtube video to learn how to make granny squares. My fingers itched to do something, to produce something.

I carried the squares in my backpack across Asia, through China and India and onward to England for the first time. I worked on it while I applied for my Tier 4 visa. I worked on it while I struggled through the first few months of living in England. I worked on it when we moved into our own room. I worked on it and joined the squares while I tools breaks from writing my MA dissertation.

And now, it’s finished. For now.

I may have to expand it someday. But the blanket is ready for our wedding. It began as an anxious exercise, and it’s grown into a story of the last 18 months. It is a physical link to the travel that we’ve done, and the moments that have defined me and us.

The dust of many roads all over the world…in Colorado, Kerala, Rajasthan, Cambridge, Dagenham, Suwon…is woven quite literally into the fibres.