Crochet Afghan Repair

Remember how last year I made my first crochet blanket?  It was my first large-scale project, and I love that blanket.

Back in March, the unthinkable happened.  One of my children pointed out that it had a hole in it.  A man-made hole.  Who are we kidding... "child-made" would be the appropriate terminology in this case.  Someone struggling with curiosity and self-control snipped my afghan with a pair of child-safe scissors, which, if you were wondering, most certainly are sharp enough to cut yarn.  

I almost cried, but I didn't.  I had already had some other discouraging news that day and didn't feel like crying (or yelling) about something that was done and done.  My face visibly showed my sorrow to my kids though.  I silently folded up the blanket and put it in the first bag I could find - an ALDI bag with handles.  That was probably my first post scissor-disaster mistake.  But I was in shock and wasn't thinking clearly. 

Today I decided two months was long enough for that thing to sit around, damaged, and totally useless.  I missed my blanket, and even though I was nervous to try the repair, I'd certainly never use that afghan again if I didn't at least try.  

I only found one Pinterest item on repairing crochet blankets that suited my needs and I dove in...  I pulled the blanket out of the bag.  UGH!!!  It stunk!  It smelled like urine.  Why did I leave it that bag all those weeks??  Why didn't I sniff the bag before I put my handiwork in there?? (really?? ;) )  Why did that bag smell like urine in the first place??  (that's a stupid question with a mostly obvious answer that is better left unspoken...)

The first thing I did was the scariest part.  I had to make the hole bigger.  I carefully picked out stitches, trying to leave the row above the damaged row as in tact as possible. Once I had pulled out all the loose threads, I pulled out each end of the hole so that the "tails" were long enough for me to work with.  Here's the original hole and then the expanded one...

I tied on a new piece of yarn and tried to figure out the best way to replace the missing row while connecting it to the row above at the same time.  

I'm sure there's a better way to do this than the method I ended up using, but here's what I did...

I inserted my hook in the loop of the last stitch, then before beginning the double crochet I put it through the two loops hanging down from each stitch in the row above.  Hard to explain, but the arrows here point to the loops I'm speaking about.  

Once the hook was through those, I did yarn over, insert hook, pull up a loop, yarn over and pull through the first two loops, yarn over and pull through the four loops on the hook (two of which are the bottom of the stitch from the row above.  This completed the row while anchoring it to the row above.  If I were ever to try a repair again, I might try to just crochet the damaged row first and then slip stitch it to the row above as the means of attaching them...  I don't know...

Finally, I made sure to securely tie off the ends and weave them in very well.  

The results aren't pretty, but I really don't care -- my afghan is usable again!! (just as soon as I Febreeze it, or toss it in the dryer with a scented dryer sheet or something...)  I don't know why I didn't do it sooner; it wasn't as scary as I had made it out to be in my head. 

Today's a bit of a chilly day, so my plans to celebrate my first successful repair involve hot tea, a new episode of Gran Hotel, and cuddling up in my first crocheted and first repaired blanket!