Baby Blankies

Happy belated Independence Day! Rob and I spent a pretty quiet weekend up in Logan. It was so nice to have a three-day weekend at home to relax, take naps in our sweet air-conditioned room, and get some things done around the house. In addition to laundry and dishes catch up, I had some time to work on a couple baby projects I wanted to share.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I immediately wanted to get working on stuff for Baby G. But of course since you spend the first half of pregnancy not knowing the gender (and in my couch wanting to do nothing other than lie on the couch), it was hard to really do much of anything. I made that little giraffe, and then I decided to crochet a gender-neutral blankie. I have always loved those retro granny square afghans, but I'd never made one before. So I went through my yarn stash and grabbed a bunch of colors I liked and started making one for Baby G. I worked on it for awhile, but then once I found out we were having a girl, other more girl-specific projects took over.

But in the last few weeks I took up the blanket again and this weekend I finished it! Behold:

Ta da! (That's my almost-29-week tummy hiding behind. I'll probably post another picture soon.) The blanket isn't as big as I originally planned, but I ran out of the yellow yarn and I didn't want to go out and buy an entire skein. So it'll just be a little throw for tummy time and to bundle up with in the car seat this winter. You can't really see the colors too well, but it's dark red (called "paprika"), bright yellow, teal, gray, green, and cream. It was a great project when I wanted something to work on without having to think too much.

Rob wanted in on the blanket modeling action. It looks even smaller when he holds it up. But I think it'll be just perfect for a tiny babe.

And for my other project...the crib quilt is (almost) finished! All I have left to do is the binding, but I couldn't wait to show it until then, so here it is!!!

I finished it tonight and I'm quite proud of it. I loved all the fabrics so much that I decided on just a simple patchwork pattern, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's only my second quilt, and this one went much faster than the first (which is also, incidentally, waiting to be bound. I'm a little frightened of binding a quilt. But I'll just have to bite the bullet here soon.) I think this one was easier both because it's a lot smaller than my first, and because I was more motivated to finish since it's all part of my nesting craze. Here's the back:

I pieced the scrappy back with some of my favorite prints and a strip of leftover squares. The quilt isn't perfect; some of the corners don't match up quite right, some of the quilted lines aren't exactly straight, and there are a few puckers in the quilting, but I'm really proud of it. I made it start to finish (well, I will have once it is finished) myself, and I can't wait to wrap my little daughter up in it. I hope she likes it as much as I do.

I have one more blanket I'm planning on doing for the baby. I hadn't planned on doing three myself, because I'm sure she'll get more, but I found this darling baby duvet cover (it has elephants on it!!!) at Ikea on clearance for $5, so I'm going to get batting for it and tie it to make a fluffy little play quilt. It'll be a quick and easy job and it was such a great deal I couldn't pass it up (and come on, elephants!!!!). Plus babies can never have too many blankies.