Welcome to the world a new baby!
When i make blanket for babies, i like to use rainbow colours. Baby crochet blankets are smaller and take less time than my giant crochet thinking projects. Baby blankets are finished quicker, and usually way way before the babies are due, just in case….
Spy my BLANKET page HERE to admire them on the bottom of the page in their own dedicated picture gallery, and if you have been gifted one of my baby blankets, see if you can spot yours amongst the others.*
*(If you cannot see your own gift on the above page, please feel free to send me a photo, and i shall rectify the situation.)
If i remember correctly, last month i may have mentioned how difficult it is for me to part with my makes, and here i am giving them away. It is not only when it comes to art that i change my mind, nearly as soon as/ exactly the same instant as i finally make a decision/ make a unchangeable statement come out of my mouth (or typing fingers) it is almost as if i am trying to prove to myself how wrong i was?
Not sure.
Crochet baby blankets are a very different making story to my giant crochet blankets. They are always FOR someone, they are made TO BE given away, they are planned and completed quite quickly, usually, and try to be as rainbow as possible, to un-enforce gender stereotypes. In theory.
There are variations on the theme, all different from one another, although usually, i make them using a combination of granny square stitch and popcorn stitch, with my favourite lace edging, to finish off the look.
This one is a bit special.
It has been made as inspired by @mercerie whose work i admire very very much – see their instagram page HERE, or on their website HERE, and become a patron to support Mercerie HERE. The way this maker creates beautiful artful crochet blankets from little flowery shapes of all sorts of sizes, and the way they fit together, even though they are not identical.
I kind of liked that.
One of my favouritest Christmas present was a pair of socks that go together, but are not identical – as seen above. Like the people we choose to become our closest, we are different, but we go together. I have recently discovered about myself, i do not/ cannot make hundreds (100s) of the same little square to assemble later, i would get more stressed than relaxed, and i might never finish the project.
Actually, correct that, i would change the pattern it half way through, and make it into something else.
So i admire people that do!
My sister in law is also one of them. I have recently swapped one of my big makes for one of the blankets she recently completed. And i LOVE IT! It is on my settee, i love looking at it and i use it to cover up on chilly evenings. I am super pleased to be the owner of this beautiful piece – made by my lovely sister (in-law technically, but sister all the same).
This reverie kind of makes me think of my Family Tree to Family Treasure project – aaah nostalgia – see HERE. I have organised my family members (twice) into making some crochet pieces, once at University, where i displayed these HERE as part of my degree show, as a family portrait of crochet items from each of the family members, and then again in the above story, where i converted the flowers i made, inspired by all the items i framed. I copied the colours, types of materials etc, into different size flowers as copied from one of my nan’s contributions. And exhibited these as a family tree.
These flowers i later collected, and put together into a blanket for my mum, including once again, pieced of everyone else’s work also HERE.
That was fun, a small arts health project of my own, before i even knew that it was arts health… Including family members, collecting their work and then putting it all together to display/ gift the finished piece.
But i digress.
Main point of this baby blanket make is that the parts are not identical but they go together. The baby has an older sibling. This blanket made me think about siblings and how we are all so very different, yet somehow we fit together into a family, under one blanket.
The fact that this post’s title is beginning with R is because of the siblings name beginning with an R.
I wish you both lots of lovely happy memories together, and to love each other even when you are annoyed at each other!
UNEXPECTED REALISATION
I love soft yarn, but there were some colours in these that were too soft and a bit snaggy, and when using those, i really was not inspired to continue until i found another, more suitable soft yarn with some decent tension.
And two: I absolutely adored the shaded pink to orange yarn, it was more expensive, to my usual choices, but worth every penny. Thank You ABAKHAN, Manchester, UK.
I seemed to have not really talked that much about the actual blanket today, and more about baby blankets in general, so here you go, admire this beaut, and may it serve to keep the baby warm for a long time.
Last but not least: Give your siblings a call, if you have not spoken to them and you wish you had.
Thanks for Reading!
In recent news:
An article has been added on Marly Bird’s website, which shares some of the benefits i find when crocheting, that i have shared with Kathryn Vercillo a little while back, see HERE the original article.