Baby blanket finished!!!!

It's only taken me nine months to complete this blanket and it's finally finished.  So happy with the end result.

When I found out I was expecting I decided I was going to put my crafty skills to work.  Baby was going to be in beautiful hand made garments and blankets, but I forgot the crafters curse.  Any project that is for ourselves seems to take forever.  With a deadline of nine months I kept telling myself "I've got plenty of time".  Oh how wrong I was.

The majority of the work has happened over the last two weeks especially with a few false starts making me think time was running out fast.

I searched for a patchwork quilt pattern and came across the one below:

crochet.about.com/od/checkboards/ig/Checkerboard-Chart/Blue-and-White-Check

Have made a few changes mainly because I lost the pattern but I also wanted to make it my own.

Decided I wanted to use four colours rather than two as couldn't decide between them.  Not knowing the sex has been quite limiting on colours, but as I love blues and greens that was my starting point with neutral grey and yellow added after.  Was really lucky with the wool was a 1kg ball for £4.99 and was DK got to love the Spotty Bag Shop (amazing shop in Banff that seems to sell everything).

Started off making the squares doing four of each colour, basic dc 45 in a row.  Think the squares are 8'x8'.  Once I finished them decided another colour would be nice as a border, thats when the white came into play.  Again dc stitches around one square and then sc to join the bordered square to the un-bordered square to create an invisible join (can see on the back but not front).  Then scalloped the edges to finish off.  Think it's worked out well.

There are a few mistakes, ever the critical crafter, but the intended recipient will not care in the slightest.  Have quite a lot of wool left over so watch this space for more baby crafts.

Count down has begun

It's been a long time since I posted on here and thought I would restart it.

A lot has changed since I last posted as I'm expecting my first child, 8 and a half months gone now hence the title.  Trying to keep myself busy but not over do it (those that know me will know this has been pretty difficult).

Got a few baby related projects on the go.  Baby blanket for one.  Which was hard as the sex is unknown (nice surprise at the end) so very gender neutral colours.  My thinking is that it's easier to put a girl in boy colours (grey, blue and green) than it is a boy into girl colours (pink, purple).  Have made some progress but here's a sneaky peak.

The squares have all been joined together now just need to decide what border to finish it off with.

Have also made some blackberry brandy and gin with the large horde of blackberries my dog found.  Such a clever dog managed to train him sniff out the bushes.  Think we'll got on another hunt this week fancy making some jam and a crumble.

Time to walk the dog now and prep food for dinner so rock and roll.