Monday, December 27, 2010

KB's "Big Sister" Blanket

Generally, when a friend has a baby, I make a big sister or big brother blanket for the older sibling(s) as well as the baby blanket for the baby. The only exception is when someone has two children so close in age that the older is really still a baby and probably still using the baby blanket. Earlier this year, KB became indignant that I was making someone a big brother blanket and hadn't ever made her a big sister blanket. The explanation that she wasn't a big sister was pretty much lost on her. So I pulled out my pattern books and let her pick. She picked this flowery pattern although she wanted blue for the borders rather than pink as the book showed.


I increased the blanket size pretty significantly from the baby blanket in the book which was maybe 6 rows of 6 or 7 to this size. I think that all the centers are made from yarn we already had except maybe the orange. We also had the cream and green yarn from other projects so I just bought a few skeins of blue. I worked on the blanket for months, eventually vowing once again to never make another blanket that requires so much whip stitching. (See exhibit 1 (hmmm... I don't seem to have a post about exhibit 1 - I'll have to remedy that) and exhibit 2 for prior similar vows). A few months ago I nearly finished it but decided I needed to do another 9 flowers so that the blanket would be symmetrical, became frustrated, and put it away while I finished some other projects. Two or three weeks ago I tried to pull it out and work on it while she slept each night to finish it for Christmas but she started not going to sleep until after I was already in bed. I finished it Christmas night at my in-laws's house so now it will be her birthday present.

And those who craft will be amused to know that once I'd made around 80 of these flowers plus a few that I messed up and gave ChocolateDaughter for her dollhouse early on, I ran of out the green yarn this far into the final flower. That's right, I needed enough green yarn to do 1 more cluster stitch. R went through our stash and found an entire skein of this same yarn but with one strand of silver or white for accent so I did the final flower in that yarn. I doubt anyone will ever notice.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Baby Blanket

I finished a blanket for my cousin's second baby Sunday. Her first baby got this blanket.
This time I knew in advance that she's expecting. She had e-mailed me when she was coordinating about coming to my nephew's Bar Mitzvah last month and of course I saw her there. She also found out in advance that she was having a girl. I really liked this pink which is a sort of smoky-rose that I'm not sure shows up that well on a computer.

The pattern was pretty easy to learn and do but not that exciting. At the end, I basically had to repeat the pink strips but in rounds. Somehow it ended up gathering at only one end. I'm sure a complete perfectionist would tear the round out completely and do it again but I'm going with good enough on this one.