Mukku Car Blanket

I’ve made couple blankets for others, but I finally made one for myself. This blanket meant to leave it in my car because I wanna get warm in the car!!

Your body is warm from your jacket, but what about your legs? Even with heater on, sometimes my legs are cold…

I got this car blanket inspiration when I went back to Japan 7 years ago…and I have to tell little story behind on why I made this car blanket…

So 7 years ago, I went back during winter time, and it was pretty chilly winter. (Not as cold as Chicago though!) It was mid December. My childhood friend and I decided to go hang out at the mall so she picked me up with her car. I get in to her car, and I see she has this small blanket on her laps!  I’ve never seen that size of a blanket before so I asked her where she got it. She couldn’t remember where she got it from, but she told me I could probably find it in the stores. I wasn’t super desperate to get one so if I was lucky to find one while shopping, I was going to get one. Seriously, it was perfect size for your lap!

So on New Year’s Day, I went shopping with my childhood friend again. In Japan, on New Year’s Day, many stores offer this goodie bag called “fukubukuro” which means “good fortune bag”. You don’t know what’s inside the bag until you buy and open it. (And you can’t return or exchange what you already bought…) Pretty much a mystery bag. Whenever I went back to Japan, it was always in summer time so I never bought “fukubukuro” before. What’s in the bag differs depending on each store. For example, if you buy the bag from clothing stores, it contains clothes from that store (Some stores have different price options. The higher the price is, it’s suppose to contain more valuable goods). I bought my first bag from this knick-knack shop (variety shop). I was so excited to see what’s inside the bag!! After I got home and open my bag….ta-da!! I got a small blanket that’s similar size as my friend’s! I was very happy with the goodies I got! (I also got unnecessary goods too though…)

The design for the blanket was a face of this famous Japanese character from TV station name “Gachapin” monochrome version. Gachapin has a buddy name “Mukku” so I wanted a blanket with Mukku’s face as well.  (You can read bio for Gachapin and Mukku HERE)

My sister bought a bag as well, but unfortunately she didn’t get a blanket…

After I got back to America, I started using this blanket in cold weather! I love it! My mom loves it, too. My mom hates cold weather, too so she likes using the blanket as well. Since I only have 1 blanket, I wanted both of us to be able to use it.

…So that’s the little story for making this blanket.

Now that I’m in to crocheting, I decided to make Mukku blanket for upcoming cold weather!

In monochrome version, Mukku is supposed to be white, but I had bunch of black chunky yarns from a project I stopped making so I decided to go with black instead. Actually, Mukku’s real color is red. My other family car needs a blanket too so I’m gonna make it again with actual color later! Along with Gachapin!