Baby crochet

Six weeks ago yesterday dear friends of ours welcomed their daughter into the world. She was in such a hurry to get here and meet everyone though that she arrived more than 7 weeks early. She was healthy right from the word go but was tiny at only 2lbs. As soon as we got the news I went on line to look for preemie crochet patterns. I really wanted to make her a tiny hat and booties right away to keep her warm in the NICU. But I was still just learning and couldn't figure out the patterns. So when I found this pattern for a blanket and it wasn't too complex, I decided to try that.

Since I'm trying to not buy anything new (for the Riot I'm keeping my consumer spending to 10% of the average), I used the yarn that was freecycled to me for this project.

The blanket worked up quite quickly and I got to learn some new stitches (slanted shell stitch). Once it was finished I felt a bit more able to try the booties. After trying a few patterns and not getting it, I found this pattern which worked. I modified it a bit to add a border at the top of the leg of the bootie in the same colour as the blanket.

Then I got really adventurous and decided to make her a little wee headband of my own design (ch x - until the chain is approx 12 inches, 14 for a newborn, sl st to join, rd1: sc through both loops, rd2: sc through both loops. Finish. For the flower: ch6, sl st to join, *work into the ring 2sc, ch4, repeat from * 3 times. sl st to join. Finish). -I'm guessing a bit on the flower because I forgot to write it down as I was doing it.

Anyway, long story short, little Eryn is now home from the hospital and we got to meet her last night. She is perfect.

And here are a few pics of the finished crochet project:







**confession: I had to buy (new) a set of needles for this project to sew the yarn through to finish. They came from India.