Baby Blues

I have pics of the baby hat & blanket that I made for my cousin's baby shower. What a race to the finish line that was! It had been a while since I had crocheted anything that big, so I forgot how time consuming it was. While I was crocheting the blanket my youngest would come up and rub it and then try to take off with the yarn I was using to make it. Several times I had to untangle the yarn to keep on going. (Even more difficult when you are using two strands at once.) Then the night before the shower I decided to go to the bathroom. Silly me! When I came back the 2 year old had unraveled a good length of the blanket. Oh yes, I wanted to scream and pull my hair out. But I didn't. (I'm not into the GI Jane look this year, lol.) I just calmly wound up the yarn and started re-crocheting the rows that were frogged. For hours more I continued on crocheting. I had almost finished the blanket, and being as it was 4am, I thought to go and catch some Zzz's before passing out from crochet stress syndrome. I packed up the blanket and put it on top of the basket of goodies for the shower. It was a laundry basket filled with outfits, laundry detergent, bottles, wipes and other odds and ends. Then I put it all up out of the reach of little hands. I did not want to have another run in with the yarn puller. The next morning I finished up the last rows and wanted to start on the edging. I go and fetch the basket to get the blanket out of it and to sort the baby items to put them in a nice arrangement. When I picked up the basket I noticed a strong baby powder scent. I thought it odd as I had not purchased any. I started to take the items out of the basket. When I got to the bottom of it, I found out the reason for the smell. I had purchased some All Baby laundry detergent, and somehow the cap had come undone. I could have sworn I made sure the lid was on tight. Thank goodness that the blanket had been on the very top of the basket and not the bottom! Can you imagine trying to crochet on a blanket that was sopping wet? As it was the laundry detergent ended up soaking the roll-up car window shade and a corner of another package. Luckily I was able to dry off the corner of the one package. It just remained slightly discolored and powder scented, lol. The window shade I had to remove from it's packaging as it was thoroughly soaked. I cleaned up the laundry basket and put everything back in. That cleaned up, it was back to the never-ending blanket. I skittered off the last few rows and made to edge it. There I was crocheting single crochet around the edge of the blanket, planning on what to do to finish it off, and I barely had enough yarn to make it all the way around once. I had less than a foot of yarn left! Thank goodness I had finished off the rows where I did. But still without a proper edging the blanket was missing something. Quick thinking I went and got some coordinating yarn (same brand, just a different color) from my stash. Now I had to experiment and frog about 4 times to get the edging to look the way I wanted it to go. You see, I was going from using 2 strands at once, to only using a single strand of yarn. I had to try several different hooks. When I found the one that worked, I went to town on it. I swear that I have yarn burns on my hands from crocheting so fast! There I was racing against the clock, and watching the minutes tick away, scared that I would not finish in time. The time came for me to leave, and still I was not done. About 10 minutes later I was finished with the crochet part, but I still had the ends to sew in. Oh no! I ran around the house throwing things into the bag and grabbed by crochet kit and ran out the door. I was going to chance sewing in the ends once I got to the shower and hope that I finished up before the mama-to-be arrived. To top it all off, the shower was held in a place that I had never been to. With MapQuest directions in hand I headed off. There I was at the final turn-off with only one more street left to find, and I couldn't see the dern thing. I pulled up at another street and entered into an alley with a baseball field at the one end of it. Thinking that I was in the wrong place, I turned around and ventured out to search some more. About 4 minutes later I get a call on my cell phone and it's my SIL wondering where I am. I told her what happened, then my aunt got on the phone and asked where I was. I told her what happened. Then her daughter got on the phone and asked me where I was. By that time I felt as though I was playing musical phones! She then instructed me to go back the way I came from, and wouldn't you know it, she led me down that same alley that I turned around in! Turns out at the other end was the church. If only I had continued on! I jumped out of the car, and my second cousin came out to greet me. I handed her a package to carry on and I practically flew into the gathering room. I quickly broke out the sewing needle, threader and scissors and got busy sewing those ends in. As I was doing so I had to explain more than once about the afghan mishaps. Sewing and talking at the same time I hurried along. Thinking that I had finished weaving in all the yarn ends, I handed over the blanket to my cousin for a quick check. Ack! I missed two. No sooner had I sewn those ends in, clipped them, folded the blanket up, took a quick snap and raced over to put it into the basket then the mama-to-be walked in the door. Whew! That was a close race to the finish line there. Luckily the baby shower itself went off without a hitch. Thank goodness! And I even managed to get home safe and sound without getting lost. Hooray! While you read the story you no doubt caught a glimpse of the never-ending-pain-in-the-tukus baby afghan. Lol. With it there is the baby hat that I loom knitted. It's done with a single strand of yarn 1 over 2 method. The afghan is composed of alternating single and double crochets. The edging is made up of single crochet and chains. Some day I will have to write the pattern down as I have gotten lots of requests for it. They are both made out of the Bernat Softee Baby yarn in the "Baby Denim Marls" color. The edging on the afghan is done with the same brand of yarn in the color "White".