Rainbow Baby Blanket

A long time ago I started making this blanket for our friends' baby which was due at the end of May. I just about managed to get these photos taken before wrapping it and giving it to them the same day. The baby (a boy) arrived a week early, but luckily I had finished the blanket in plenty of time, only needing to wash it before giving it away.

The colours ended up working really well together, definitely worth buying the darker colours like the navy and purple to balance out the pastels. The white border works a treat, although the first round was a bit of a nightmare to make it look neat enough. There was a fair amount of frogging and muttering under my breath until I decided that it just had to look handmade and not absolutely perfect. It was fine in the end though, once I had laid it out neatly on a towel to dry.

Our friends were really pleased with the blanket and have used it several times. And of course the baby is just gorgeous, such a little poppet. I have had a few cuddles from him already - hadn't had newborn baby snuggles for such a long time!

At around the same time, I made this flag to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. I quickly ran it up on the machine - all roughly cut to size pieces and raw edges - whilst the flotilla was on the telly. Wow, that seems like such a long time ago now. Just goes to show how far behind I am with blogging. Must catch up.

With the remains of the cotton yarn from the baby blanket, I have started making a chevron crochet cushion cover. I have not made much progress on this, just a few more rows than there are in the photo. I kind of lost interest as it was being made for the garden bench but we were having just dreadful neverending rain that I shoved it in a bag and forgot about it. Must get it made up now that our Summer has finally started, and it won't take long at all to complete.

Talking of Summer, here is a shot of the pool with F and E enjoying playing with the woggles/noodles. We have been in there pretty much every day this week, although it was rather chilly this morning so we didn't stay in for long. I sanded and stained the small garden table that we have had for about 15 years. It will last a couple more years I think but I had to throw out two of the chairs that go with it as they were falling apart. It kind of looks like the garden furniture rejects area alongside the pool, all mismatched, faded, peeling and on their last legs. There are also large mounds of mud, dead branches and a few weeds thrown in. Not a pretty sight, must do more gardening next week. Bit tricky doing any kind of physical activity in 29 degrees heat. The refreshingly cool (read as blimmin freezing 20 degrees!) pool was calling to me.

Right, back soon with more updates. Will hopefully be all up to date with blog posts by this time next week. x