Baby 2012 giftbags

Before the party, I made all the moms goody bags.  My original plan was to crochet everyone a baby hat.  I got a little burned out on making hats for all my nieces and nephews for Christmas.  I felt like making blankets instead which was easier in that it required less looking at patterns, but not as far as how long it took.  To make it easier on myself, I only used three patterns and just did some variations (to keep it interesting for me and to make everyone's blanket unique).  The hard part was coming up with ideas for gender neutral blankets.

Here are examples of the three kinds of blankets I made (and they're all my attempts at gender neutral).  The first is just rows of double crochet.  Those ones usually ended up being the biggest blankets because I always start with too big of a chain.
The second one is a big granny square.  One of the granny square blankets I made had nine little squares I'd made previously crocheted together.  I made a shades of blue granny square, that patriotic one, and the sock monkey inspired one below.
The third pattern is one I found online called the brain dead pattern.  Once you get the hang of it, it's just as mindless as the other patterns I used.  The example in the picture is made with a variegated baby yarn.  I also made one with girly colored stripes.

The other item I made for each mom was a clip on strap to turn any blanket into a nursing cover.  I suppose you could use it to turn a cloth napkin into a bib as well.  I got the pattern from this site.
I used some pink and blue flannel I got from the remnant bin at Joann's, some neutral colored ribbon, and drapery clips from Ikea.  Ikea seemed to have the best prices I could find for clips.

My pregnant self making nursing cover straps

The last item I put into each bag was a small bundle of newborn diapers tied up with a ribbon.  That's a fun way to give diapers because then everyone can oooh and ahh at how small newborn diapers are.  You forget so quickly!

For the gift bags, I used plain white gift bags and made mini posters to decorate the front sides of the bags.  Here's the file for my bag fronts.  I printed them out two to a page.

Baby 2012 Congratulations


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Granny Square

Since we have a new niece arriving next month and because I find crocheting relaxing, I recently made this little baby blanket. It is one big granny square. I got tired of doing it all the same so I tried switching off which hook I was using. I made a fairly large square with a J hook and then switched for the next few rows to a bigger hook (I think it was like M or N, my big plastic ones don't say on them what they are). I ended up doing two sections of big rows alternating with small rows. It made it a little more interesting.
I like granny squares because the pattern is repetitive (I don't like having to keep looking over a pattern or counting stitches and rows).

Here's how to make a granny square.
chain 4, slip stitch the end to the beginning to make a circle. chain 3 (that counts as the first double crochet. going through the middle of the circle, make two more double crochets then chain one, make three double crochets then chain one, make three more double crochets then chain one, finally make three more double crochets and chain one then slip stitch into the top of the chain three to finish off the row. Slip stitch through the two double crochets until you get to the chain one space. Chain 3(for the first double crochet) then do two double crochet in the space (just like you did in the circle at the beginning), chain 2 then do three more double crochet in the same space (it should make a nice corner). chain 1 and then in the next space make three double crochet, chain 2 and three more double crochet, then chain 1 and repeat in each remaining space until you get back around to where you started. slip stitch to close it off and slip stitch to get yourself to the corner again. repeat what you did on the last row, only this time there will be spaces in between the corners. In those spaces, just do three double crochets and continue on with a chain 1 in between the shells (those three double crochets). You can make as many rows as you like.