A Blanket for Linus

I recently finished my most in-depth, time consuming crochet project and thought I would share it here for all of you to enjoy.

A month and a half ago I was at a loss as to what to get my friend for a "welcome baby" gift for the imminent arrival of number 2.  I'm a stay-at-home-mom married to a college student. We don't have a lot of disposable income, and since this was her second in less than 3 years, it's not like she needed anything.

Suddenly, the thought came to me that I should make her something special-something he would get a lot of use out of-but what?  At that moment, Addie walked by holding her blankie-her lovey.  Perfect!

So, here it is, a blanket for Linus.  And yes, that's his name.  She did make it too perfect!!

I love this blanket.  I wanted colors that are perfect for a little boy, but something other than just a basic blue and white baby blanket.  I decided to use colors found in nature for this blanket, and I think they look great together.

I used Lion's Brand Wool-Ease yarn in Caramel, Avocado, Fisherman, and Blue Heather.

With these colors, I made 9 granny squares for each color-totaling 36 granny squares.  Since this was a much bigger project than most everything I make, I decided to work on it little by little in between other projects which is why it ended up taking as long as it did.  Every night after I was done making a hat or hair bows, I would make a granny square, or many granny squares depending on the night.

 

Once I was finished making all of the Granny Squares, it was time to sew them all together.  To do this, I just held two Granny Squares together and used a darning needle to sew them together and weaved in each end.  That's a lot of ends!

 

 

Finally, to give the blanket a finished look, I decided to do a shell stitching* around each edge. This helps hide the imperfections such as slightly different squares.  The finished product...

 

...Is the perfect little blankie for a new little boy.

I hope he enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to give him his gift yet.  He went back into the hospital before I got to meet him due to a bacterial infection he picked up during birth.  All is well though, according to his mom, he is improving quickly and will be out of there as soon as he finishes his antibiotics!

So, here is a big, giant "Get Well Soon!" for baby Linus, and a big, giant hug for his momma-if she happens to read my blog.

I hope you enjoyed my reading about the process! 

This post has attended the I Made It! Blog Party over at Everything Etsy. Check out the other attendees!

* Shell Stitch: 2 hdc, ch 1, 2 hdc in same stitch, skip next 2 sts and repeat