Google

Oh, Baby!


Recently - right in the middle of my Christmas/birthday/poncho crochet marathon - my good friend and her husband were chosen to adopt a beautiful baby girl! While I was excited for them, I was in a bit of a frenzy to make her baby afghan.

I have a personal policy for crocheted gifts - I don't make afghans ahead of time. I mean, I don't make wedding afghans or baby afghans to have on hand. I make each one - from chain to trim - for a specific person, for a specific event. I start baby afghans after the mother is expecting. I start wedding afghans after the couple sets a wedding date. This usually gives me plenty of time. This time I only got a week! (The mom and dad only got 3 days notice).

I had already chosen the pattern and yarn for the blanket, when I found out they were "cleared" for adoption. I believe it is called "Baby's Joyful Arrival" and it is from Leisure Arts' Afghans for All Seasons (Book 3) (at least I think it was book 3).

The blanket took me about 40 hours of steady crocheting. And I'm a pretty darn fast crocheter! I think it turned out beautifully, but I don't think I will make one again - unless it is for my own next child! I think the 40 hours wouldn't be as big of a deal if it wasn't all in one week, especially at this time of year.

The pattern is a chevron, where each band consists of 7 rows, with the center row being of contrasting popcorns, bookended by keyholes and double crochets. The bands alternate from primarily pink to primarily white.

Labels:

posted by Anonymous on Thursday, December 29, 2005 @ 12:31 PM

2 comments

Love My Baby

I have been too busy crocheting (and cleaning and wrapping and mailing and working and...) to write about it!

Back at the beginning of December, my baby turned one. I made her a poncho/hat/scarf set as her "clothes" item from my husband and me for her birthday (we always do something to read, something to play with, and something to wear).

I started with a big ball of the Sensations pink tonal boucle yarn (JoAnn's brand) and made two rectangular panels that went through one round of the color variation (dark pink to white) in a simple crochet stitch, and then crocheted the two together with a slip stitch to make a poncho. This was my first poncho, and I got the length to width ratio a little off - her head hole was far too small!! I undid a few stitches on one seam, and it made a nice lapel and collar.

I still had a huge ball of yarn left, so I made a simple scarf. Each piece of the fringe had to be knotted, so as to not unravel. That was a bummer.

Then I made the hat. For the main body of the hat I held a strand of white Caron Simply Soft with the boucle. When I got to where I wanted the brim to be, I increased slightly with each row to flare it a little, and tripled over the boucle. I just picked a piece of the yarn about yard from where I was crocheting and pulled it up to the hook, crocheted with the tripled over yarn until it ran out, and the repeated until I got the brim the size I wanted.

She gets comments on the set whenever she wears it out (and she usually does - it's light enough for her to move and play in)!

Labels:

posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 @ 2:34 PM

2 comments