Throwback

Today I'm coming in a day early (after having totally missed the last two weeks other than to promote the husband's book on Monday) and I'm bringing to you the very first blanket that I ever crocheted.

It's only slightly a cop out because I don't have a new project to show, though, Monday should bring a "ta-dah" moment, if the sun decides to cooperate, which is debatable.

This blanket stayed wrapped in Christmas paper for, we're in November, so a year. I am the absolute worst at sending gifts, I usually have the best of intentions but then I forget or get sidetracked or totally lose my mind.

My sister-in-law taught me to crochet after she visited another sister-in-law who taught her how to crochet. The sister-in-law who taught me is left handed and I am right handed so we ran into a wee bit of confusion, plus I'm a bit dense and didn't pick up on it very easily. I played around a bit with some yarn and made a scarf like thing using single stitches that became a shawl for one of the girls' dolls because it was way too small for a human being to use.

This blanket was my first attempt at a double crochet. I look at it now and laugh a little. There are so many little flaws, skipped stitches, extra stitches and a clearly defined line where I ran out of one skein of yarn and attached the other. I had no idea about counting stitches and hadn't discovered Pinterest so the proportions are all wrong. The border is wonky and bunches near the corner; it is far longer than it is wide and it could stand to have several more rows added. But it was my first ever completed blanket and for that it holds a pretty special place.

Stars blanket

This blanket! Oh, this blanket gave me so much trouble, but I do love it despite harboring varying degrees of ill-will towards the process of making it.

One of my favorite songs (almost of all time) is "Stars" from the musical Les Miserables, especially the verses: "Stars / In your multitude / Scarce to be counted / Filling the darkness / With order and light/ You are the sentinels / Silent and sure/ Keeping watch in the night / You know your place in the sky / You hold your course and your aim / And each in your seasons returns and returns / And is always the same." I find it so reassuring. Stars are constant, sailors used them to navigate, that's how reliable they are. (This blog seems to be a whole slew of metaphors that I like rose, toast, stars: check.)

When I saw this fabric at Jones and Vandermeer, I felt compelled to have some to make a blanket. I ended up purchasing a meter (about a yard) thinking that I would create a whole-cloth quilt requiring zero cutting (because you can't just cut into Liberty fabric).

I bought a yard of minky for the backing in light gray and added a layer of batting to fill it up a bit. The Liberty is so very light and airy it needed a bit of weight.  

Being very much aware of how much I love this fabric based on my love for the song I was very cautious and spent a lot of time looking at the fabric with no desire to really get started. Perhaps the apprehension is what led to all the trouble. I began by pinning all the layers together in a quilt sandwich. Nerves, I'll blame the nerves, led to piecing the sandwich together wrong, a feature that wasn't noticed until all the layers had been sewn together. Out came the seam ripper! Ripping on Liberty is gutting. Absolutely heart-wrenching. I almost quit right then and there and put away my sewing machine for good. But it wasn't the machine's fault:

And the whole process began again. A task that I had imagined taking only a few hours ended up taking most of the day, but I did finish and do love how it turned out and think that it pays homage to my love of "Stars" very well.

Baby boy ripple blanket

What glorious Fall weather we've been having. The leaves are turning, the light is deepening and even though I was up before the sun this morning the glowing rise above the mountains was a beautiful thing to behold and made the early start (almost) worth it.

Things are happening in our house, crafty things, business-y things, big things, little things, not the least of which, I'm growing a human, which is both exhilarating and exhausting. Of course, when I think baby, I immediately think blanket. Once we found out that Baby #4 was Boy #2 I set right to work on making one of my most favorite blankets: the ripple.

If you're interested, Lucy from Attic 24 has an amazing tutorial on how to work this fantastic pattern. I can hardly add to what she has already said so I'll just show off what I've done.















The rhythm in creating this blanket is so soothing: four dc here, two decease there, four dc here, two increase there. I loved every stitch, even after getting distracted (toddlers will do that), miss-counting and having to unravel a row. It's fairly quick work too because it's so rhythmic.

Originally, I set out using only the blues, but found that I wanted a bit more diversity and incorporated the beige and brown. I also have fairly strong opinions about borders and "finishing" a blanket (a quirk I find amusing because I certainly don't feel that way when quilting, as the square wee wander blanket is evidence) and wanted to make sure that I included a nice border. For this, only the blues were used.

I love how it turned out and cannot wait to snuggle up with our new little guy come Winter.