When I found out I was pregnant this time last year, to say I had mixed feelings would be an understatement. Obviously I was happy - It was what we had wanted for some time. But I was terrified. After our previous problems, culminating in losing our son in 2015, pregnancy was a terrifying concept - every day that went by should have been something I enjoyed, a celebration, but instead it was just one more day that something could go wrong. Even though we were offered a new scan every four weeks, I struggled to believe it was possible that everything would be okay.
It was for this reason that I was reluctant to crochet anything. I had previously started cross stitching the Vermillion Stitchery Fantasy bears onto a 16 count afghan for Quinn, and to this day it is sitting in a drawer, unfinished. I found many beautiful patterns online for everything from blankets to booties, rattles to cardigans, and more. But I was frozen in fear. While people around me were excitedly baby shopping, I was to scared to believe. Melodramatic? Maybe. But no less true.
After we passed the six month mark, I decided to risk crocheting something. But what? It had to be a blanket. Every baby born into my family has had a blanket. Both of my sons, my nieces, even my mum and sisters. I knew our baby had to have a blanket. A rainbow blanket for our rainbow baby.
I had originally wanted to use the My Little Pony yarn from Dye Candy for this blanket, but my son had previously claimed those and was not letting go. With only 12 weeks to go before bay arrived, buying more yarn wasn't exactly an option - babies are expensive!! So I raided my stash and discovered an unused Easter yarn box - nine mini-skeins of sock weight rainbow yarn. The rainbow gradient wasn't complete, however. I had a lovely deep pink-red, all the way through to bright yellow-green, but nothing beyond that. I couldn't have an unfinished rainbow, so I took to my trusty online yarn supplier - Wool Warehouse. There, I was lucky to find some mini skeins of sock weight cotton for only £0.59 each! Buying several of each colour needed to complete the gradient - as well as several skeins of Drops Safran cotton in off-white - I knew I had my colourway. I just didn't have a pattern!
One pattern I had always been fond of was the "Call the Midwife" blanket. However, at the time I was considering making the blanket, the CtM was a very popular pattern choice - and it still is, actually - and I wanted to be different!! By chance a pattern was posted to one of the many Facebook groups I follow, and I fell in love with it. Firstly, for its pattern - similar to the CtM, but different at the same time. Secondly, for its name - "Rainbow Spirit". A bit cheesy, maybe, but I felt the name embodied the very feeling I was trying to convey. I was sold!
Combining each colour with a strand of off white, I was able to work up the blanket as if it was DK weight yarn. Following the pattern, however, I soon encountered a problem - I had too many colours!! Ok, not your average crochet problem, I'll admit, but the blanket was going to work up too long and narrow for a baby blanket. I had come too far to frog it, and I certainly didn't want to leave any colours out... I would just have to widen the blanket in some way. Though when it came to the end, I didn't have enough yarn left over to do much of anything. A simple SC rainbow gradient down the right and left sides was all my leftover yarn could muster! Still, with all those colours, I managed to add several inches onto the width. It was about twice the size that I had originally intended, but that just meant it would last her longer!!
To finish, I decided not to use the edging that came with the pattern, but instead used an eyelet lace pattern that I found here on Ali Pyper's blog. Blogger is a great place for crochet patterns, it seems!!
Since her safe arrival I have been inspired to crochet so much for her, but this blanket was the first ever item crafted for her by me, and I'm hoping that she continues to use it for many years to come!
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