Making Blankets

I had a roommate my first year in college, Carolvee, who taught me how to crochet the right way. Before she worked with me on how to hold the yarn and make an even stitch, my creations looked a little bit like floppy elephant ears. Incidentally, Carolvee was excellent at teaching crafts. She taught nearly all of our entire dorm floor (40 girls) how to crochet well - and most of the people made blankets for friends or family as Christmas presents that year. Once everyone else had finished their blankets, they were pretty much done with it. Not Carolvee or I. For the rest of that year, and several years after, I continued to crochet at a rate of at least one blanket every three weeks. Imagine my joy when my friends and sisters started having babies and I found that I could make smaller, cuter blankets to cuddle little ones at a rate of anywhere between 3 days and 2 weeks!

For years and years I made a blanket for pretty much everyone I knew that was having a baby. Several people also got booties, sweaters and hats. In a way, it was how I dealt with my unsatisfied baby obsession. It is just in the last couple of years that I started to step away from being able to keep up with this hobby... not only were more and more babies being born to people I knew at a phenomenal rate, but I also started coping with the absence of my own baby in other ways.

When I found out that I was pregnant, and was in so much stress about the well being of my little baby, Andy had a great idea. He said, "Why don't you make our baby a blanket?" I went out and bought yarn that day. And it worked. Instead of obsessing over blood pressure and other such things, I was able to escape for hours at a time into the monotonous world of crocheting. We didn't know the gender yet, so I chose to make a white blanket with a green trim. When it was done I felt a little bit closer to my little boy.


But that wasn't enough. Now that I knew he as a little boy, I wanted to make something a little more gender-specific. Plus, I was only 5.5 months pregnant. So we went back to Michael's to buy more yarn, and I made him this little play blanket.



I still had some yarn leftover when I was finished (four days after starting it,) so I decided to make something for Charlie too. I'd like to introduce you to Jeffory... the baby Charlie started caring for this summer after exclaiming that our baby should be named Jeffory. I made him a little play blanket in corresponding colors to match Little Bit's. Charlie was pretty excited, and now Jeffory looks like this every night...


I've also made a hat and have started a bigger blanket for Charlie. It is nice to be crocheting again, and to have something to occupy my time while we wait for our boy to arrive.