I was reasonably pleased with the first baby blanket I knitted for Marmite. I had wanted squares and a sort of ‘organised’ feel to it and it came up much as I hoped. But the way I constructed it meant the back was quite raw and ‘back of something’ like and I think it will be better lined.

I’ve got some flannelette to do that with this weekend. It also came up fairly big and I want Marmite to be directly wrapped in something I made for him, so I decided that I’d make another one too.

I did fall quite in love with the Nina blanket I made for my new niece. I hadn’t really ‘got’ how much softer baby yarn is and I knew anything made with the Lang wouldn’t be quite the same, but thought it would be close enough. I swapped to lovely Knitpro 4.5 wooden needles and got going and I’m really pleased with the results.

The bane of stripy knitting – ends! I took advice, mostly ignored it because I’m not of the finisher mentality ( ) but did sew them down fairly securely before crocheting over them, which worked better than Nina’s blanket did. It’s otherwise the same double seed stitch as Nina’s and in various shades of Lang Superwash Merino 120 (which is nearly impossible to find online). The rows are 120 stitches long and the white stripes are 6 rows and the coloured stripes are 8 rows, except for the two end reds which are 6 rows (knew I would run out of wool!)

It’s smaller than Freddie’s blanket was but that was more than big enough for a newborn and so this is to be a first snuggly blanket. I’m trying very hard not to let myself think of this as being the blanket I would send him to the morgue in if I needed to But that is on my mind. Freddie went away from me in a blanket that all the girls used, knitted by my Nana. The nurses had to find it from the hospital washing, which it had got sucked into. But they did; it was one of those little bits of loving care that made all the difference. But if we have to do that again, this time I’ll have two blankets to choose between, one to keep and one for him.

That wasn’t very cheerful was it

This one has now gone in the hospital bag, ready for the big day which is now countable in sleeps (or not sleeps might be a more accurate definition). I’m going to try and make a hat from the remnants – and maybe a little bag for his first clothes to be in now.

It’s quite amazing, looking at these two blankets, that they’ve used at most 1 1/2 ball of coloured wool each, but almost 7 of the cream. It’s remarkably easy to ignore borders and edges. Even the green round the edge (the edges are two rows of dc crochet in cream, 1 in green) used a lot more than I thought it would.

I’m going to have to think of a new project now that I can do with a baby on my lap. With the first two girls I had a friend who made samplers with very clever cutwork embroidery on it to spell out their names. I’m not convinced I can manage that but I might have a stab at some tapestry versions. I’d quite like to make something with all of them on it.

I don’t suppose anyone who reads regularly would wonder about the rainbow concept, but these posts get a few day trippers so I’ll explain. There is a phrase, oft repeated by those who have lost an infant, that the child who comes after is a ‘rainbow baby’. That after the storm, however terrible it was, what comes next has the potential for peace and beauty and joy. And so it is for most people who have a subsequent child. May it be so for us. Marmite’s colour is going to be green. The girls used up pink, purple and red and yellow and light blue and Freddie stole our hearts with his blue blanket and his oh so short little life. Green is what is left for Marmite; I can’t bear to do blue again and Max and the girls are under strict instructions not to bring blue presents. Luckily, marketing seems to be meandering back in the direction of jungle colours in a less gender specific way, which is making that easier. So Marmite gets to be rainbow, with some green around the edges