Twin blankets

Hello, blog! Long time no see! Since early April, I've acquired a pair of nephews, bought a house, and traveled a bit, and I've been knitting and crocheting the whole time, so there's a lot to catch up on.

But to resume with where I left off at my last post: baby boys! The twin nephews arrived in early April, ahead of schedule but mostly healthy (they're both doing fine now). I knitted them each a blanket:

I used the Walt Painted Chevron Baby Blanket pattern, by Danielle of fibre space, and Universal Yarn Cotton Supreme. The yarn is nice to work with, and it machine-washes wonderfully and feels amazingly soft afterwards. I used the same colors for each blanket, but varied the stripe order: one is blue and brown, with green at the opposite end, and the other is green and brown, with blue at the opposite end.

I was slightly worried that using so much white might make them seem to precious to actually use, but the blankets have made a few appearances in the twins' monthly photo sessions, so I'm happy their parents have found at least one use for them!

Twin blanket: green/brown/blue
Twin blanket: blue/brown/green

Little pilgrim booties

Once upon a time, a coworker who was moving apartments kindly donated some of her yarn stash. She gave me a ball of super-soft Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, and suggested that I could crochet a little critter out of it, but to me it was too nice to become just another amigurumi. So it sat and waited, and I fussed occasionally about what to do with it.

Several years later, another coworker from the same job announced that she was pregnant. I don't work there anymore, but it's a baby that belongs to a friend so of course, I wanted to knit for it! And finally, that Baby Cashmerino found its destiny.

This baby's mother is a scholar who studies pilgrimage, and who went on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route the summer that she was pregnant. She was pretty pleased to have such a well-traveled pilgrim baby before she was even born, so I wanted to make her a fitting welcome-to-the-world gift. Footwear seems like the appropriate thing for a tiny globe-trotter, and the symbol of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage is the scallop shell.

I combined Petits chaussons gris, a free pattern for baby booties (available in English), with these free instructions for knitting tiny scallop appliques. The booties are knit in the Baby Cashmerino with accents in Cascade 220 Superwash Sport, and the smaller of the scallop applique patterns turned out to be the perfect size. These booties are wonderfully soft and cute, and I hope that Pilgrim Baby (and Pilgrim Mama) like them.

Elephant blankies

It's been quiet on my blog again, partly because in May, most of my projects were presents (and partly because I'm lazy). But now that all the presents have been given away, I have quite a few posts to catch up on.

Two of my friends from grad school had babies within a few weeks of each other this spring, and I thought it would be nice to make them matching presents. Since I'm not that confident with baby sizing, I wanted to avoid sweaters, and I get the impression that most booties don't stay on that well. I was searching for something cute and cuddly, that the babies wouldn't instantly grow out of - and look what I found!

The pattern is Grace - Elephant Comfort Blanket by Dedri Uys and is available for free on Ravelry. I would happily have paid for it, though, because it's detailed and well written. The construction of the head and ears is slightly complicated, but every stitch is explained, and the result is super cute! The only change I made was to crochet a few more decreasing rounds at the back of the elephant heads before sewing them on to the blankets, to help keep the stuffing secure inside. I also sewed on black pieces of felt for the eyes rather than using safety eyes. I think opinion is mixed on whether safety eyes are really baby-safe, but I didn't want to take any chances.

I used Berroco Comfort DK in alternating colors, and each blankie took about one and a half skeins, which makes this a very affordable project!

Both babies have received their elephants now and I've enjoyed seeing the pictures of them with their new buddies. I hope they can enjoy them for several years.