Back in the late 70s (or early 80s?), a local department store was selling off its neon yarns - safety-orange, neon blue, eye-splitting pink, unimaginable shades of yellow and green - and I broke the bank to buy massive amounts of each. I left the store with the yarn in an enormous red plastic bag - supplied by the toy department where they usually gave them for carrying home large toys at Christmastime. I’ve been working my way through it as slowly as possible - for fear that the colours may never again be available at such a low price. (I think it was 39¢ each 50g, but don’t really remember.)

The pattern was one I’d done before; I’d done the first one in leftover browns and beiges. My cousin liked it; I didn’t; so it went home with her.
I had tried to do the second one for our daughter in two shades of purple. That was when I discovered that not all worsted weight yarns work up to the same gauge. I’d had to tear it out with one and a half strips done … one of which was impossibly shorter than the other at the same number of rows! Rats!

So, with the intention of succeeding to make it for myself, I made it from my stash of neon yarns in the early 2000s. Since all the strips were made with the same yarn, there was no gauge discrepancy. I had just enough of the blue to assemble the strips and work a very narrow border - a single round of reverse single crochet - with just inches leftover. No more neon blue in my stash. :(

The colours on my monitor are only almost as bright and shocking as the reality. It is BRIGHT and awakening, but that doesn’t stop me from sleeping under its warmth.

Whenever I come across the pattern booklet, I’ll add that information here.