Michelle's Baby Blanket

A friend of mine recently had a baby late last month. I was excited for her, but at the same time... a little jealous because of my lack of ability to have children (as some may know, my husband and I have been trying for almost a year now). She's one of my closest friends I have here, and she has done a lot for me. Such as, photographing my wedding, which was huge.

I don't like to knit for other people. Usually, you know I care about you if I knit something. I will knit the occasional sock for Christmas for a very close family member (Tyler got his first pair of socks last year), but I usually knit things for myself. It's difficult to explain why, though. Everything I make I feel like I put a ton of work into, and a lot of people don't realize how much work goes into knitting. That being said, I need to know that the people I gift handmade knitted items to will appreciate the work put into them.

Michelle has recently become one of the few in my "knitting gift" circle. She loves everything that she receives, has done so much for my husband and I, so I wanted to give something to her to celebrate the beginning of their new baby's life. I decided to make them a baby blanket!

The pattern is just a simple Old Shale pattern found in a stitch dictionary. I wanted to make her something that looked impressive, yet was easy enough to get done in a quick amount of time. I had started this a week before the baby was born, so it needed to be done... quick! I panicked, thinking I wasn't going to be done in time, but after a couple of days of really furious knitting, I finished. I didn't finish before the baby was born, but it was done when I saw her next.

Her and her husband chose not to know the gender of the baby, so I picked out a neutral yellow color. It turned out really pretty! And, she loved the blanket, which definitely made all the furious knitting worth it.