This old woollen blanket of Mum’s has been in a cupboard for years. It’s the sort of blanket people used to give as a wedding present and it could well date back to the 1950s when woollen mills were thriving up and down the country. Mum has two of the orange and cream ones as under-blankets and a blue-green one under her duvet. There is a cream one with sage green blanket stitch, and two grey ‘army’ blankets with red blanket stitch still in various cupboards. I brought out two aircell blankets to use as throws. I can remember from my childhood that these were popular as children’s blankets as they were warm while letting air circulate.

They would all have been stored away somewhere, but I put them to use, preferring wool, particularly of such good quality, to anything else. When I discovered this cream, blue and lemon blanket last week I decided it needed some attention. This afternoon, I used embroidery thread to darn the moth holes and to repair the unravelling blanket stitch. A tutorial on YouTube gave an easy lesson on how to do that! I darned on the inside so that the mend appears flat from the outside of the blanket. The blanket is now in the washing machine undergoing a wool wash.

Many of the woollen mills have closed, but it’s great to see a resurgence in using wool. The Napier Woollen Mill’s machinery was bought by Wild Earth Yarns Ltd and shipped to Christchurch. I just looked them up and found they have a retail shop in Addington.

You often find the old blankets in markets, repurposed as clothing or cushions or bags. A variety of the patterns are used in a cushion we bought in Wānaka several years ago. Otherwise, they are found in museums – or, in our case, put to good use!