I do not cut yarn to make fringes! However, I didn’t cut any yarn to make this blanket’s fringes; they were recuperated from the original afghan.

Here’s the story:

There was a very sorry looking blanket at the second-hand store. It was ENORMOUS and holey - more holes than this city has potholes in spring! But the yarn - ordinary worsted weight yarn - seemed to call to me. I didn’t need any more yarn, but … So, I bought it for next to nothing and packed it for that year’s trip to Syria (sometime in 2010, before the war). I removed the sparse fringes and put them into a baggie. I unravelled the double-hooked stitches. I discovered that the maker of the super-loose afghan had actually used sewing thread to secure yarn ends! Then, using a much smaller hook than had been used originally, and using approximately the same number of stitches, I remade it. It’s thick and warm, though much smaller than the original. I re-installed the same fringes, but because it was so much smaller (shorter spaces between stitches), what had been a ratty looking and very sparse scattering of fringe was now a thick and luxurious fringe! Happy me and happy yarn!

Both the original and the re-done blankets were made with a double-ended crochet hook. It’s basically afghan stitch/Tunisian Simple Stitch worked with two colours. One colour predominates on each side, as you can see at the top of the photo where I folded one edge down part way. The red stick in the photo is a 12” ruler for perspective. I failed to actually measure the finished afghan, but it’s more of a lap-throw than blanket. I’d guess it’s about one yard square, not counting those fringes.

I had imagined it would have been snapped up by one of my many sisters-in-law or some other woman in my husband’s large extended family, but one of his adult nephews grabbed it before any of the women could. He wanted it! Happy day!