This is one of my favorite baby blanket patterns. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve made over the years, but I know the first one I made was for Christopher Gustafson and he must be close to (if not more than) thirty. This latest one was made for Nolan James, the son of a good friend that I worked with at the City.

I’ve made blue ones, pink ones, and purple ones. They no longer make the baby wool I have been using, but I still have enough for a couple more in my stash.

When Kathryn was expecting a baby I, of course, wanted to make a baby blanket for my new grandchild. I searched many stores in the Lower Mainland before finding some lovely purple wool (purple was Kathryn’s favorite color). At some point before Will was very old, his purple blanket fell out of favour and the new “must have” blanket was this green one.

After it was accidentally left behind in a hotel room the call came that he needed a new one. I already had several squares done for a granny-square afghan so this was the quickest solution. It seemed that every time I visited his blanket had sprung another hole that I would have to stitch closed. At first I wondered why, but Kathryn told me that when Will is going to sleep he likes to poke his toes through the holes.

Earlier this month I had a call from Kathryn that Will’s blanket was beyond repair, and did I have another one on hand. I didn’t, but I got busy and found a pattern and some wool in the Saskatchewan Roughrider colors. At first look (via Face Time) Will was concerned that there weren’t any holes in it for his toes. He was pleased that the finished product had lots of toe-holes.

Since the Madison was getting a quilt and Emma was getting an afghan, I couldn’t go to Calgary without something for Gavin. I didn’t have a lot of time so I dug into my bins and found some squares that had been left over from another afghan I made. A few of the squares had centers that were originally crocheted by Mum.

Christy originally asked for a soft yellow scarf and I had some lovely wool that was exactly the right colour. I think it originally came from Pat’s Mum.

The scarf pattern used a condo stitch so it knit up very quickly. The condo stitch is basically a garter stitch (knit every row), but every second row is knit on a much larger needle. That’s what gives it the lacy look.

When she added mittens to the order I had to change the wool. Thankfully in my bins I had some perfect mitt wool in a shade of yellow. The mitts were knit on two needles as I was having problems with my usual four-needle pattern.