Baby blankets

I've been keeping these secret for a while! 

If you follow me on instagram (I'm henrys_shed) then you might have seen a sneaky peek! 

But I couldn't share here, or on FB because I would spoil the surprise!

 They are for a very good friend of mine who is expecting her 3rd baby.

I have already crocheted blankets for her 2 girls, so there was no chance baby number 3 would NOT get blankets!

 She announced her pregnancy to me by asking if I had time to crochet another blanket before September!

Not because baby is due in September, but because her and the whole of her lovely family are moving to Australia in September. Australia!!! I am sad, and I will miss them terribly, but what a fantastic opportunity! Plus, Miss M says she is having a gap year and spending it in Australia with them!!! Hmm, we'll see about that!

 So, she asked if I would wait until her 2nd scan, because they wanted to find out the sex of the baby this time.

I had trouble waiting. I wanted to crochet. Straight away!!

But I managed to contain myself, and as I'm sure you have figured out already, they are having a baby boy. Ahhhh!!

 The first blanket I made was a ripple. 

I love ripples!

I had a quick visit to Attic24 to remind myself how to start off, using this great tutorial again :)

I used stylecraft (excellent baby blanket making stuff) and I chose this lovely combination of blues, browns and green.

I really enjoyed this one, it had been a while since I had rippled!

 But then I had to decide about the edge.

I had not put an edge on a ripple before, I quite like them as they are, wibbly.

But I kind of wanted to try.

So I thought about it for a while, and eventually decided to go for it.

And I'm really glad I did!

I used Little Tin Bird's tutorial making-a-ripple-straight

 Then I went a little bit colour crazy.

I decided that the baby really needed a crazy bright blanket too!

So I dug through my stylecraft stash (mountain) and pulled out anything that wasn't girly and I hadn't already used in the ripple. Which wasn't actually that much - I have A LOT of pink/purple stylecraft!!!

I very nearly made solid granny squares, like an Elmer blanket. But then I saw a granny ripple on FB and just had to try!

 I love the pattern, really simple, really quick, lots of fun.

I was worried about the colours for quite some time.

They were a bit, well, LOUD!!!

But actually, I love it!

I gave the blankets to my friend earlier this week.

I'm pretty sure she loved them too.

2 big snuggly cuddles for what will, I'm sure, be a very gorgeous baby.

My way of giving him hugs, even though he'll be born on the other side of the world.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx