Blackberry Salad Blanket

It is finished.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant I began thinking not of how I would decorate a nursery or what I wanted to buy rather my mind was immediately taken to what I wanted needed to crochet for this new life. I have made countless number of baby items, many for friends, and some for complete strangers. I have taken over 250 hats/boot sets to a near by local hospital and just shy of a dozen afghans to a local nursing home. There is something sacred for me in creating something with yarn, something so soft and tender, something to be wrapped in, to be held tight by, to be reminded of the ways in which we too were knit together. (However, I crochet and have zero knitting abilities and zero desire to gain said abilities)

I knew I would make a hat (or many a hat over the course of baby's life), booties (seriously, it doesn't get much cuter than crocheted booties), probably some other miscellaneous things, but I wanted to create a blanket for baby. Something that I could use with baby right away, not too big (I can make a huge one once baby is no longer a baby but more of a kid/teen/adult) but also not too small, that baby would outgrow in a matter of days. Here's hoping for a tall child who wants to play basketball with mom.

There was a strange set of pressure to create something for baby. I wanted it to be just right. I didn't want it to be pastel, I didn't want it to be too baby, but I didn't want it to scream grown up either. I didn't want to fly through it as if it took no time, I wanted there to be a little complexity (which once I got the hang of the pattern the only complexity was counting and remembering to switch colors), I wanted it to be unique, and nontraditional. I looked at patterns on ravelry for days, weeks really. I hemmed and hawed, I made test swatches, 14 of them to be exact. The 14th one won my heart. Blackberry Salad Baby Blanket from Moogly Blog got my final stamp of approval, Marc even liked it.

Then I had to pick yarn, seriously, this is a much harder task then it should be. I stood in the isles at Hobby Lobby, I felt yarn, I thought about experimenting with new yarn that I hadn't ever used, I thought about using fancy yarn, but in the end I came back to "I love this yarn" brand. Then I had to pick colors, "I love this yarn" comes in more colors than I ever imagined and my list of possibilities for color combinations felt nearly endless. I held the colors in my arms, I switched colors out, I added colors, I debated how many colors, I wrestled with my options.

Due to the ridiculousness of this winter this blanket was my winter project that followed my previous winter project (the large afghan for myself). I worked on it while we watched movies, while we drove places, while I sat in silence in prayed for the dear one who will be wrapped up tight in the blanket.

It is finished and I am getting anxious for the small one who will occupy this blanket.

Winter crochet project

      This winter I have FINALLY been working on a blanket for myself, I have made lots of other folks blankets, but I finally got to the point that I wanted to make mysefl one. SOOO this blanket was born, I semi adapted a pattern from some things I had seen  and the hours of crocheting began. I began just after Christmas and finished a couple of nights ago. It always takes me a couple days to get pictures and uploaded. The blanket measures roughly 83 inches long and 52 inches wide. It is obnoxiously big and I seriously lost track of how many skeins of yarn it took. I used Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Yarn," which I love and went to town. I actually only had one skein of each of the colors but then the grey is where I lost track of how many skeins I used. I do still have a pretty good ball left of each other colors, which is perfect by me because they will be transformed into other things (hats, mittens, baby booties, ear warmers, the list is endless). 

     My pictures aren't amazing of the blanket, but I have a hard time photographing crocheted blankets. The one picture is while I was laying on the floor attempting to get some pictures of the blanket and Dakota laid down right in front of me and it felt like she was almost rolling her eyes at me and telling me enough is enough, move on and come snuggle me or something other than take photos of this blanket. I love it though. I suppose the size is a little large, but I wanted to be able to tuck it under my toes (I am just shy of 6 foot tall) while laying down and be able to pull it up to my chin without having to stretch it out. It is plenty wide enough that I can either sit in my favorite chair at our house or curl up on the couch and nap in it.
     While I loved this project was fun and mindless (I watched countless movies this winter while working on this blanket) I am happy to be moving onto another project. What's next in my crochet world? Great question, traditionally in the spring/summer my crocheting slows WAY down due to my love of the outdoors, but I a dear friend of mine just had a little girl who clearly NEEDS some crocheted goodness, a blanket for my mother (she wants a big one as well, so that will take some time) and a few other things up my sleeve. I also want to try out a couple of new things. Keep your eyes peeled, there will be more crocheted wonderfulness coming down the pipe.
    Given the weather this Spring winter my guess is we won't be hanging out too much outside for a bit. BLAH craptastic weather, bring on spring.