Big Brother Blanket

I finished my friend S's little boy (K's) big brother blanket this week. This is the older brother of the baby I did the swirley blanket for. It's a simple v/shell stitch alternation which I find to be an easy and fast pattern to do. It's also pretty resilient for toddlers to carry around or abuse without doing much damage.

I texted my friend when I finished the blanket and said she could tell the baby that she can come now.

Baby Blanket

I finished this baby blanket for my friend S last weekend. I would have posted pictures earlier but I'm pretty sure S reads this blog and she's a facebook friend so the pictures have languished in the computer, just waiting for their metaphorical moment in the sun. The pattern consists of 52 (4 rows of 7 motifs and 3 rows of 8 motifs) hexagonal swirly motifs. Making them was quite fun and I never got bored of making them. It was nice after making the large afghan I made this summer to get to work on something so portable. I probably made 10-12 of them before I had the first three rounds of the pattern memorized but the 4-12th rounds were easy from the beginning. Actually, I miscounted and made about 5-6 extra motifs. Finishing the blanket meant whip stitching the rows and then whip stitching the rows together in the psuedo-rectangle and then putting a round of single-crochet (sc) and then a round of chain (skip sc), half double-crochet, repeat around.

The baby shower was last night so here are the pictures!

Project Done

I've finished the project I was working on for Christmas presents. I made these 12 dishcloths. For Christmas we're giving most of the members of R's family copies on a book on green cleaning and 3 hand-made dish cloths each. For the 8 brightly colored ones, I used a fillet crochet book that R picked up at some store for $2.99. If you can't make out the patterns, they are (top left to right): pattern, daisy, triangles, pattern, (bottom left to right): dove, tulip, squirrel and triangles. The top four are just some double crochet and some ribbing. Hopefully they'll like them.

Receiving Blanket Pictures

My co-worker sent me a few pictures of the edgings on the receiving blankets. I still find it pretty hard to turn the corners in an attractive way but you can see the work a little here.

Perhaps the best part is that someone attending the picture asked me how you keep changing the thread color on the rainbow one. I was sort of like... well, it's variegated thread?

Receiving Blankets

I made two receiving blankets for a co-worker and took them to her shower on Wednesday. She seemed excited by how soft they were (the material really IS soft) and definitely could tell they were hand-done and appreciated them. The first ones I did (last year) the recipient said "oh how pretty..." until she realized they were hand-done. Then she got really excited and appreciative. Anyway, I hadn't taken my usual pictures and posted them, partially because the recipient is a Facebook friend so I could't post them over there (although I could have posted them here). And I totally forgot to take the pictures at all. I asked her to take some extras and send them so when I get them, I'll post them here as well as Facebook.

Afghan Done

Here are the pictures I alluded to yesterday regarding the completed afghan for my niece. It's designed to fit a full-sized bed although it is shown here on a queen (because that's what we have). Below is a close-up of one of the squares. The blanket has 5 rows of 3 of these designs and a border of 1 row/column of double crochet all the way around the end.

Looking back at my blog, it looks like it took me about 2.5 months to complete this blanket. I'm pretty happy with that. And I have my next 3-4 projects all planned out.

Afghan Progress

I have finished the first pattern row for the afghan I'm making for my niece. This is the infamous blanket of the counting and re-counting and counting and re-counting and more re-counting. Here are some pictures of it laid out on the queen-sized bed (long-ways -- It will hang off the sides of a full-sized bed. In order to get a picture that shows the whole thing I'd either need a lower bed, cleaner floor, taller wife (she took the pictures, being taller than me), or wide-angle lens. Given the chances of getting any of those requirements, instead imagine that there are three full squares with the poinsettia in the center. At the edges there are three of those columns of spaces and a solid double-crochet border. I'm very happy with it.

At this point I've used just under 3 skeins of yarn and I originally bought 15 which means that if my original calculation works, I'll add 4 more rows of patterns and will have enough yarn. I still don't know if I'll put an additional border on the blanket. I think it doesn't need it but R wants me to add one. I'll wait until I'm done with the basic pattern to decide.