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!
About two years ago I took delivery of some My Little Pony sock weight yarn from Dye Candy. Originally, I blogged about how I would like to make a knitted mitre blanket, buuuut...that didn't happen.
This yarn was always going to be for my son - He might be 13 years old (now) but he's always been a My Little Pony fan. He has so much of the merchandise, and even did a presentation in school 18 months ago about how he liked MLP, and that was OK because people can like whatever they want. I did try to get him to let his little sister have the yarn for a blanket, considering they were very feminine colours and he did already have a blanket, but no. He was adamant. And so in July last year, I started work on what would become the most frustrating granny square blanket ever...
It started off well. I wanted to make a solid granny square blanket with a rustic feel. The size of the blanket was always going to be an issue because it was a comparatively small ratio of sock yarn to a much larger teenage boy. As such I worked out that I could get 13 2-inch squares to one mini-skein of yarn, and that if I added some white and cream I could make blocks and make the yarn go further. I had 5 months til Christmas and it would be a great gift! It was a great idea, in theory...
I was pregnant at the time. Hot, heavy, tired, and struggling with all of the negatives that pregnancy could bring. There were days when I was so ill that I couldn't bear to lift my hook, days that were so hot that working on a blanket was out of the question, and towards the end, days when I would just sleep. All day... But still I thought I could do it. I pushed through, often running out of the Drops Safran cotton that I bought from Wool Warehouse and having to wait while more was delivered - I had miscounted so badly. I was only getting 18 squares per ball, as opposed to the 25-30 I had expected.
Then December arrived. "I'm so close" I thought...."Only...how many squares to go..?" It was then that I felt the impending failure... I still needed over 150 squares... The blanket on a whole would later comprise of a total 493 3-inch squares. My contractions started on the morning of the 4th. The never-ending blanket felt like it would never be completed. I tried crocheting while I was in labour but I couldn't focus on my counting... It was just too much of a distraction. My daughter arrived on the 5th. I tried crocheting while she was sleeping, but I was just too tired... Christmas came and went, and I felt so guilty, like I had let my son down.
But as my daughter got older, I learned to crochet while she was feeding, or sleeping in my arms. But I had a lot of long nights in those early weeks, and I needed something to keep me awake after the midwives had put the fear of God into me. It was still extremely slow going, and as I started top-stitching some definition onto the blocks I felt that it was going to last forever, it was getting just that tedious.
Obviously it didn't last forever, though how I found the will to continue through to the end, I'm still not sure... On Mothers' day in March, (funnily enough, four years on from the Mothers' day on which I finished the Minecraft blanket) I was ready to give my son the blanket which he had waited two years for. At least the end project is enjoyable, even if the act of creating it was somewhat of a chore.
I got more yarn! Yeah, I know, I really don't need it. I mean.....This is how my yarn stash is currently looking, minus the yarn for Sophie:
But I am a sod for a good yarn box. This will be my last though, because I have gone too crazy on yarn lately. I seem to have developed a compulsion for buying yarn, and I need to reign it in before I bankrupt myself! (Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad.....but it could be!!)
When I heard about this yarn box from Dye Candy a few months back, I couldn't help but sign up for it. The theme is My Little Pony, and while my 11 year old son does love MLP, I am not convinced that he will trade his epic Minecraft blanket for a much smaller My Little Pony one.... So while I know I am going to make a blanket with this yarn, I have no idea who I am going to make it for!
As the yarn is sock weight, I plan on making a knitted blanket - one with mitred squares like this tutorial shows. I am hoping that the squares will be of the right size to work with sock yarn, while at the same time being able to show off the colour changes in the variegated yarn properly.
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I have never done this before, however - I am still very much a novice when it comes to knitting. I can knit a scarf, sure, but I haven't really tried anything else. It will be a while before I get around to this blanket though. So fingers crossed that it works well when I do get to it! If not, I may find myself switching back to the trusty old granny square.
I believe I've already mentioned that I'm a sucker for a good yarn box, so when it was put on Facebook that there would be an Easter collaboration between Truly Hooked, Unbelievawool, and Dye Candy, I just couldn't say no! I was a bit naughty and I ordered the larger box - A little extra cost for twice the amount of hand dyed goodness. Well, it arrived this morning and I was NOT disappointed!
Inside my box were nine mini-skeins of lace weight yarn, in very vibrant pinks, oranges, yellows and greens. They definitely made me think of Spring flowers - more specifically, daffodils. There is also a link to two Ravelry scarf patterns to use your yarn with. Both scarves are free, and have very similar looks, so I think I am going to stay inside my comfort zone and make the crochet one. I could use the yarn on something different, and I know this, but I am always making blankets. I hardly ever branch out, and a nice colourful scarf might be just the thing to get me out of the baby pool! And I get to learn another new stitch, too. These are the two scarf patterns - The Mini Mania Scarf by Sarah Core, and the Crochet Linen Scarf by Heidi Beukelman.
There were also some lovely handmade buttons by Cross Crafts, some beads in case I want to add beads or tassels and, of course, some chocolate. Well, it is an Easter box after all!
Happy Easter!
