Last year, SO many of my friends had babies. Although a few acquaintances also had kids last year, I was on the hook for 4 craft projects. 3 of them were crocheted blankets. When I went to make this post, I realized that I’m terrible about keeping good records. But I wanted to post the blankets anyway with as close an approximation to how I made them as possible, if only to show people that anything you like you can make with enough rejiggering and co-opting of patterns. I think they’re pretty cute, if I do say so myself!
Afghan #1: The Endor Harlequin
first on the docket was baby Stormageddon. His parents decided on an Endor theme for his nursery. I wanted to give him something that would match the theme, but not be a Star Wars blanket per-se. Longevity for the win. So, I picked forest colors.
I was inspired by this Harlequin blanket by Coco Rose: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/63120832253325616/ But there was no pattern on her site, and I had a heck of a time finding one. I finally settled on using this free Diamond Blanket pattern on Ravelry, but stitching the diamonds together like Coco Rose did, not in the box pattern suggested by the pattern maker: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/diamond-blanket-4. I put the diamonds together using a single crochet stitch, and made sure the pattern was random but well distributed.
All yarns are from Lion Brand, Vanna’s Choice. She has a TON of colors, the yarn is inexpensive, and it’s all washable in case there is a throw up or poo situation. You have to plan for these things with babies…
Afghan #2: the Gender Neutral Stripe
My cousin was expecting her third, but had decided not to find out if Baby was a boy or a girl until birth. That meant some hard choices in blanket world. I sort of hate the green/yellow combo that seems to be the standard for non-gendered things. And I fell in love with this blanket: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/256283035021011817/. I decided to make it in white and gray, with a bright middle stripe in green, yellow, and coral (which would read orange for boy and pink for girl, I hoped). Yarn is Caron Simply Soft, and I would SERIOUSLY recommend buying enough yarn the first time around. I ran out of gray and had a heck of a time matching the color.
I didn’t work with a pattern for this one. I chained an odd number of stitches for how wide I thought the blanket should be. Then, for rows 1 and 2, I double crocheted across in white and bound off. Next, I picked a bright color. I repeated a double crochet, chain one, pattern across row 3, ending with a double crochet in the last stitch (hence the odd number of chains starting out.) Then, I bound off and did another 2 rows of white. For rows 6-10, I used the gray yarn instead of white, and I kept going until it looked like it was big enough.
For the border, I went around all the edges with a double crochet in white twice. Then I used this awesome Praying With My Feet tutorial to make the scalloped edge. http://prayingwithmyfeet.blogspot.mx/2011/05/crocheted-scalloped-border.html Which I almost left off, for fear it would be too girly. Baby is a girl, though, so I’m glad I left it on after all.
Thanks a billion to my cousin for sending the photo. I said I was a terrible record keeper…
Afghan #3: the Not So Girly Hexagon Extravaganza
I don’t have a real picture of this blanket. I was in such a rush to finish it, that I just wrapped it up and ran without taking the time to find the camera. I do have the pictures above, though, and you can kind of see how it would have made up. It was beautiful when finished, and I secretly wanted to keep it for the back of my own couch… If only it hadn’t been baby sized.
I made it for good friend of my husband’s, who was expecting a baby girl with her wife. I knew they were trying to go the non-gender conforming route, so that meant unexpected color choice as well. I totally fell in love with this blanket at Dover and Madden: http://doverandmadden.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/ta-dah.html. But again, no pattern!
I searched high and low, and finally came across this one from Attic 24. http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2008/11/hexagon-crochet.html. The hexes look almost identical in pattern to the other. I’m afraid I also kept really terrible records about which yarn I used. I basically roamed the aisles of the giant Jo Ann with the Dover and Madden picture and matched as best I could. I do remember that everything I picked was washable, though. I made sure when making them up that I had an even distribution of colors, and that no hex had exactly the same color pattern.
I stitched the hexes together in the round, so it basically made one gigantic hex when done. I used this Grumpy Girl method to connect them: http://grumpygirl.blogs.com/home/2007/08/tutorial-the-am.html. It made a nice, flat stitch. I was pleased with the outcome.
I think the reason I kept such poor record on this one was because it was a beast to make. So many fiddly parts, and it took FOREVER. Never again. But Baby and company really, really love it, so it was all worth the trouble.
I hope you get inspired to make some afghans of your own!
Caseykin's Crafty Stuff 