Yes, it’s true. I made this:
My excuses:
- It was 1970
- Limited yarn budget, using whatever I could find in the 25-cent bin, or beg or borrow from friends, relations and people with a grudge against me
- Unlimited time
- Not yet knowing how to knit
- Hating the seaming and end-darning common to standard issue granny square blankets
- Having no concept whatsoever of what a useful size might be
- Being 14 years old at the time
I came across it on Saturday, at the bottom of a box of first apartment leftovers I rescued from a narrowly averted basement flood. I did actually use the thing. I did most of my Junior High School and High School homework while wrapped in it. It also accompanied me off to college, where it kept other people from sitting on my bed, or provided a modicum of insulation when hung up against a very cold cinderblock wall.
I will say the haphazard design and awful colors sort of grow on you after a while. Kind of like fungus, or a particularly gruesome looking pet. My kids want to use it as our TV room sofa throw. Maybe you have to be pre-adult to appreciate it. Plus it’s absolute proof that Acrylic Is Forever.
String-Or-Nothing 
i love this blanket! i don’t know what you are talking about "horror". i think its brilliant. i can not beleive you made that when you were 14. i love how you have all the squares overlaping. ok maybe i wouldn’t have picked those exact colors but the randomness of the pattern is enought to make me want to learn to crochet!
I think this is one awesome looking blanket! It’s beautiful the way you combined the colors like that. Very ingenious how it’s put together, too. Not your typical Granny Square, which is what I did for my first blanket. I love the overlapping squares! It reminds me of an old video game background. Plus, It’s doing exactly what it was intended for- warmth and happy thoughts.
Thanks for the kind words about my ugly ducking. Amusingly, it predated even arcade video games by a good ten years – although at the time I was already coding in Basic, on streaming paper tape, and in Fortran on punch cards. 🙂
I salute the 14 year old you! My 14 year old self would have been pushed into a normal granny square, gotten bored after a few squares and quit. I love how you got all the different bits fitted together, maybe not so fond of a couple of the colors, but 1970 says so much about the colors used. Your afghan reminds me of some of the “modern” quilts made lately.
And I’m waaaay beyond pre-adult, so it’s not an age thing to appreciate it!
The thing, though odd looking, has served me well. First as a study-blanket in junior and senior high school, then off to university, where it spent time as a wall hanging, insulating me from a wicked cold concrete block wall in winter, or as a spread on my bed. Then off to our progression of post-college residences, where it lived on the sofa. Small repairs have happened across the years. It’s now in the basement, as shown, in the TV room, having been loved and then left behind by my own kids, as they went through school and off to college.