When my friend told me she was expecting a baby I was absolutely delighted.
Not only was a little person joining the world who had great parents, I would have the opportunity to get my knit on and make things in miniature. How adorable!
You can check out the baby shower pics here.
In an attempt to be organised, and craftier in more ways than one, I decided to go for a gender neutral project and colour.
The plan was to make something that could be given as a ‘coming home from hospital’ present, and I thought a knitted pram cover in mint green would be perfect.
A crafty relative dug out a heap of vintage knitting patterns in her stash for me to choose from.
It was a tough choice but I plumped for this one:
VINTAGE KNITTING PATTERN: Floral pram cover
My friend discovered she was having a little girl and decided on a pink and green colour scheme for the nursery.
In hindsight my decision to go ‘gender neutral’ and pick green had been a good one. *smug face*
I started the project in October thinking that a reasonably small pram cover wouldn’t take too long, however with the baby due in November looking back I underestimated it just a smidgen.
It’s a fairly straight forward pattern that mainly uses knit and purl stitches with increases and decreases. So far, so straightforward.
However you need to make 48 of these squares in total, sew them together and crochet around the edges.
No mean feat when you’ve got 31 days, a full-time job to juggle and, you know, sleep.
As I knitted square after square and placed them together to get an idea of how it would look my mum remarked there was something familiar about it.
After digging around in an old chest of drawers she unearthed the exact same cover, knitted in primrose yellow, that my grandma had made for me 20-odd years ago! Who’d have thunk it?!
My friend had a beautiful little girl (who was a tad early… just saying) called Amelia Grace at the beginning of November.
So with the project still a few squares short of a blanket, I had to re-think my original plans, and turn it into a Christmas present.
WORK IN PROGRESS: Squares laid out ready to be sewn up
Luckily I had a few days off before Christmas so I was able to devote entire chunks of time to manically knitting squares and stitching it together.
ALL SEWN UP: The blanket well on its way to being nearly finished
The four squares are knitted individually and sewn together to create one flower, which in turn is sewn together with the other flowers to form the blanket.
I was still sewing come 6.30pm on Christmas Eve, and pressing it up until 7pm – talk about cutting it fine – but here’s the finished product:
FINISHED! Knitted, sewn and pressed
In the picture the edges look a little wonky, but I promise that after 20 minutes of careful pressing it looked the dogs do-dahs.
As I’m not au fait with crocheting, I decided to use blanket stitch around the edging, something my mum offered to do out of pity… at this point I was starting to go cross-eyed from sewing all day.
I love the 3d nature of this design and how such a simple collection of stitches produces a lovely design.
READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP: Four of the knitted squares
Even the back looks nice, so if the little ‘un has a tantrum or is simply too warm, even the reverse of the blanket will look nice when she’s out and about.
IN REVERSE: The motif from the WS
I picked up these tags at the Knitting and Stitching Show as an added little touch.
HEARTFELT: For someone special tags
Although it turned out to be a rushed job towards the end, I really enjoyed seeing this blanket come together.
Were you manically knitting/sewing in the run-up to Christmas? Would love to see what you made! 
Well done! That’s a fantastic achievement and I’m sure your friend and Amelia will cherish it for years to come
I managed to make stockings for myself and my partner before Christmas, which was an achievement until I was told one looked like an oven glove!
Ooh that sounds very crafty! And whoever said it looks like an oven glove can go and shhhh!
I have an alost identical blanket that my Mama made for me! (As an adult, though!) It’s purple and green. She was an amazing and prolific knitter,said it was good for her arthritic wrist.Great skills!
Ooh a purple and green combo sounds amazing! And if it’s adult-sized that must be one helluva big blanket!!
What a great crafter she was!
Where can I get the pattern from to make the cute blanket
Unfortunately it was one I borrowed from a vintage collection, but I’m sure there are plenty of etsy/ebay sellers offering that kind of pattern instore.