Under a snuggly blanket

I love to make blankets for babies and almost everyone, it seems, loves to get a handmade gift for their newborn.  So with two new babies expected in our family this summer, I had a lovely task ahead of me.

My parents were planning a trip to visit my sister and (hopefully) her new baby in mid-August and my gift had to be on that flight with them so that was a fixed deadline!  I started early, soon after my sister sent me an image of the nursery scheme they had included in their baby list.  I love a crochet squares blanket; all those little finishes, each square, each colour, each joined seam, each border colour!  I was finishing it right up til the last minute; I had to borrow a wool needle from my mum to sew in the border ends before I could leave it with them!

I had to tweak the colours towards the end to keep the balance more on the blues than the others and I'm really pleased at how it came out.  It's loosely based on the Elmer blanket from Little Tin Bird, my go-to crochet square for babies.

We were expecting a proper surprise this time round; no clue at all from any of our scans so I decided on a rainbow blanket for our little one.  This is a crochet granny stripe, you can find loads of patterns online but I think I originally found mine at Attic24.  It's approximately 60cm by 120cm, the same size as our cot, but folded in half, it's doing very nicely for the moses basket at the moment.

As usual, for both blankets, I've used Stylecraft Special DK acrylic yarn.  It's cheap and cheerful but you wouldn't know that from the feel of the finished blanket.  It's perfect for baby blankets because you can bung it in the washing machine and it washes and dries beautifully.

This blanket was not finished before the baby arrived but I did get it done in time to use it as a backdrop for some important photos!