Treasury box for baby Leon

Last week was awesome - I was working on some new crocheted stuff, started one knitting project and, the most important news, our family became bigger - in the 11th of April my husband's cousin had his little son, baby Leon in Manchester hospital. Now they are both home - mum Mary and her little baby, they feal fine and are getting to know each other better.
As in the last couple of months I was knitting and crocheting some little baby stuff for baby Leon, when he was finaly born I've collected all of it, put it into a beautiful box and posted to Manchester.



And this is what was in the box:
a newborn size baby cardigan. It's my own design, but I didn't write down the pattern.



A crocheted baby cardigan for 3 months olds. I used the the pattern from Virkipa, you can find the pattern in this post. It is wonderfully soft and I used the buttons in four different colours so it would look more interesting.



a baby blanket. You can find the pattern in a previous post.



and a little 100% cotton baby rattle.



The next day I had a phone call from Mary and she told she liked it all so much and it looked so sweet and lovely! That's great when someone really likes what you are doing, isn't it?
I hope baby Leon will enjoy all of his gifts.
And I've noticed that I haven't been posting any pictures of My Little Man for a while. Here he is, my little angel:



He's doing great, rolling around, playing with toys and yesturday had his first two teeth - lower front ones :)

Crochet baby ripple blanket free pattern

Size 77x79 cm
You will need 250g. of DK, 150g in yellow and 100g in blue, 4mm crochet hook and a bit of patience.
This pattern is super easy, all you need to know before starting this blaknet is how to make a double crochet and how to crochet two double crochet together; the tricky part is the first row where you need to count the dc. All the rest is easy.
Some abbreviations I used:
ch is chain
dc is a double crochet
2 dc into next dc means make two double crochets into the next double crochet of a previous row (increase)
dc 2 tog means double crochet two together (decrease)
I would adwise you to make a gauge from the yarn you want to use in the blanket. For the gauge chain 18, dc into the 3rd chain from the hook, dc into next 5 chains, make 2 dc into the next chain, make 2 dc into the next chain, dc into next 5 chains, dc 2 tog, turn. For the second row chain two, dc into next 6 chains, make 2 dc into the next chain, make 2 dc into the next chain, dc into next 5 chains, dc 2 tog, turn. Repeat the second row a couple more times. This is how ONE of your blanket ripple "waves" will look. 9 of them will make this partikular blanket. By making it you can understand how big your blanket will be.

If you want to make you blanket wider simply change the number of times you crochet from * to * (point 6 of row 1) and repeat it every row.



So, are you ready to start? Here we go:
Row 1:1.) take your yellow DK and chain 146 with it,
2.) dc into the fourth chain from the hook,
3.) dc in next 5 chains,
4.) 2 dc into the next chain
5.) *2 dc into the next chain, dc in next 5 chains, dc 2 tog, dc 2 tog, dc in next 5 chains, 2 dc into the next chain*
6.) repeat from *to* 8 times
7.) 2 dc into the next chain, dc in next 5 chains, dc 2 tog
Row 2:chain 2, dc in next 6 dc, 2 dc into the next dc, * 2 dc into the next dc, dc in next 5 dc, dc 2 tog, dc 2 tog, dc in next 5 dc, 2 dc into the next dc*, repeat from * to * 8 times; 2 dc into nxe next dc, dc in next 5 dc, dc 2 tog.

And here is the drawing to show you the first two rows. I know it could have been better and I'll try harder next time, but for now I hope it's all more or less clear:



Repeating row 2 make two more rows in yellow, than change the colours as follows:
2 rows blue,
1 row yellow,
3 rows blue,
2 yellow,
1 row blue,
3 rows yellow,
2 rows blue,
1 row yellow,
1 row blue,
2 rows yellow,
3 rows blue,
4 rows yellow,
2 rows blue,
3 rows yellow,
1 row blue,
1 row yellow,
2 rows blue,
3 rows yellow,
1 row blue,
2 rows yellow,
3 rows blue,
4 rows yellow,
1 row blue,
1 row yellow,
2 rows blue,
3 rows yellow,
1 row blue,
2 rows yellow,
2 rows blue,
5 rows yellow.

If you want to make the blanket longer, skip last 2 rows blue and 5 rows yellow, and repeat from the top - 2 blue, 1 yellow, 3 blue and so on till you are satisfied with the lenght. Then, after finishing your last rows in blue, make 5 rows in yellow to finish the blanket. In this case you obviously will need more yarn in both colours.
Hide the yarn ends and enjoy your new baby blanket :)

If you make a blanket with this pattern I would be really happy to see you results, so any pictures or links to them are appreciated in comments. As well as any questions. Just ask and I will be glad to help.

Baby ripple blanket progress

I've done some crocheting and my ripple blanket is growing. Here is some progress.







At first I didn't realize that I can simply hide my yarn ends inside the next row and some ends are left just as they are.



I will hide them later just using a needle. But hiding them while I crochet the next row is simplier and quicker of course. Just need to remember it for the future.

Ripples, inspiration and snow

Well, here I am, starting my first crochet ripple blanket. This are the colours:



Yarn is Cuore For Baby by KATIA, 50g/190mts, 80% acrilic, 25% merino, 15% polyamide. It is extremely soft and nice to touch, so should be an ideal thing for the baby blanket. I bought it from Knitters World Scarborough and the price was fantastic, but only because this yarn has been discontinued by KATIA.
Actually I bought it while I was pregnant to make a warm slipsuit for My Little Man, but then I realized how much time will it take to knit a slipsuit with so fine yarn. So I decided to crochet a baby blanket for my husband's cousins baby who should be born in April.

One more thing I want to share today is more inspirational. Probably I'm a bit crazy about doing two things in the same time, but I manage to search the Web while breastfeeding and today I was looking for some clothes made with granny squares. Most of the pictures are quite odd and boring in the same time, but this four looked quite cool to me.



I really love them all, especially the last one. It looks so cool and modern despite it's just the old well-known granny squares.

And finally the last news for today - it's snowing here! I really like snow. I missed the snow so much this winter and finaly it's here. This is how it looks through my sitting room window: