Babylon Blanket
My first written pattern was inspired by a childhood friend’s family heirloom piece. I remember seeing this years ago and fell in love. A lovely serving tray with florals and curved line designs, blues, purples, greens, and gold all flowed together and came together as a piece that made my heart smile.
For me this tray represents all the ways that love flows in and out of your life. It reminds me of all the faces that love wears when helping to shape you into the person you inevitably become. While life’s pain and downturns create the cracks and bruises that teach you the greatest lessons, love is what helps put you back together and reshapes you into a stronger and more resilient person.
Love comes and goes the same way the heartbreak and pain does. We are quick to want to rid ourselves of pain, but want to hold on to the love even when its time has expired. We desire to live in a constant state of happiness because it feels so good and we resist the pain and sorrow because, well, it doesn’t.
Love can’t come in until the pain has done it’s job of breaking you. Love can’t save the day until we allow the pain to do what it’s meant to and to allow it to leave when it’s done. I know my biggest lesson in life is how and when to surrender. It’s such a simple concept, but it still is the hardest thing for me to do.
Love and pain are like the sun and moon in our lives. Each has it’s time and each has it’s purpose. We need them both in order to truly thrive and fulfill our purpose here. We need them both in order to live. The yin and yang that swirl around us breaking us apart and putting us back together again, if we allow them to.
“Love is something easy to conceal but hard to kill... Even though someone is gone, your love for them lives on.”
Paying tribute to the different faces of love that have flowed in and out of my life, I began writing a pattern for a round blanket that would eventually be named the Babylon Blanket.
“Babylon,” from David Gray’s White Ladder album was a very significant song for me and I suppose you could say it still is. It is the lesson that has brought me the most heart ache and tears, but also the one that has filled my heart and life with the most unexplainable joy all at the same time. “Babylon” was once a song that reminded me of great love and youthful innocence. Now as I’ve grown older and I have many more years of experience under my belt, while “Babylon” is still the theme song for this great love, it has become a reminder for me that life is moving on. No matter what we do, time moves on. We have this one go at life and we get the incredible gift of choice. This gift can bring us heartbreak and it can also bring us joy. We never know what is behind the next door until we open it.
So “Babylon” has become a gift for me. Instead of reminding me of regrets and longing for the ability to undo what has been done, it reminds me that we can’t keep looking back in the rearview mirror. The choices have been made and it’s time to surrender to them. There will always be sorrow in life and there will always be pain, but surrendering to it with the same energy as we surrender to the happiness and joy is what will keep us moving forward.
While the Babylon blanket has been inspired by my own story, I am hoping you will see your own chapters and pages in these weaves and stitches too. Every stitch and round is a part of us and a part of a collective journey meeting and knowing the different faces of love.
I wrote this pattern with all of us in mind. I wrote this knowing that every fiber artist who enjoys the art of crochet would be able to complete this. The Bablyon Blanket is written using single, double, and triple crochet stitches. I have written this so a beginner would be able to accomplish this project. While this project will take some time to complete, I do believe it, much like life, has some rounds which will fly by with ease and almost so quickly you forgot how long it actually took. Some rounds will take more time and will make you wonder if you’ve made the right choice beginning this endeavor, but when you finish, you’ll look back with a sense of accomplishment and excitement for the next round to come.
As you work your rounds and stitches, reflect on the journey you’ve been on and the progress you’ve made. Recognize and celebrate the hurdles you’ve crossed over and the challenges you’ve overcome. Take care of you and your heart. Love yourself with so much passion and dedication that you are able to pick up those broken pieces pain left behind in its wake for yourself. Allow yourself to be one of the faces of love that supports you and your journey.