New Beginnings

This week, April 4th, my dearest husband and I became grandparents. My youngest son, Ben and his fiancé Ashly had a son, Owen Benjamin. As you can see, it was a very proud moment for my husband, Steve.

I wanted to make something special for my new grandson and the parents. I remembered seeing free patterns for a car seat blanket. This blanket has strategic holes for the straps and buckles and there were actually 3 different patterns for this project. After going through all three, I decided to take the plunge and re-try my hand at making granny squares.

You see, granny squares and I aren't very compatible with each other. My first major crochet project was a granny square afghan. It was absolutely gorgeous with a royal blue, light blue, green and yellow (at least I think it was green -- I know the center of each granny was yellow!) Anyways, I bought all of the yarn necessary (cost me a bunch of saved money from my chores) and got started. For some reason, squares just bore me to tears and if you're one stitch off, they get all wonky. I rapidly got frustrated and put the whole shabang away. I would take it out ever-so-often and make a couple of more squares, but there were so many to do . . .

My younger sister took the afghan in hand (spare yarn and all) and tried to take over and finish the project. I don't know how she ever did on it. Whether she finished or gave up as well.

But this project intrigued me. http://www.premieryarns.com/patterns.php?id=108

So I grabbed the royal blue yarn (Caron One Pound) I had bought for the blanket. I had some left-over rich chocolate brown (Caron One Pound) from making a hooded cocoon for the newborn. (Forgot to take photos of the finished project, darn! I'll have to hope I can get a photo from my son when they use it.) Anyways, I grabbed the 2 yarns and my crochet hook and attempted to make my first hexagon granny. The end product was so beautiful that I jumped in. What I absolutely love is that there are only 30 hexagons, 4 half-hexagons and 2 triangles to make. It doesn't seem like an impossible number to me -- and that's half the battle.

According to the blanket diagram, the 2 triangle pieces form the opening for the buckle, so I made enough hexagons and the 2 triangles and laid out the central part of the diagram.

I am so excited with this pattern so far -- I can't wait to finish all the hexagons.

I will post the completed blanket.