They're ready!!

Preemie blankets galore! We've finally got them all collected and ready to go.

My girls helped me to roll each blanket and attached hat and tie a coordinating ribbon around them. We slipped a small typed note from us as well.

Our goal was a total of 35 blankets and we ended up with 45! ...19 boy blankets and 26 girl blankets.


I separated them for easy distribution. So above are the boy blankets.


I also pulled out a few with particularly small hats to give to the particularly small babies.


Here are the girls blankets.


And the girl blankets with the tiniest hats.


Look at this precious bonnet for a micro-preemie. The bonnet is only about 2 inches high.


They're all ready to go!

Two blankets and a Pitiful attempt at Amigurami

I'm singing praises that we have finally collected enough blankets for the NICU service project. I'll be wrapping them up and getting them to the NICU in just a couple of weeks.

Here are the last two blankets I made:

And here is my pitiful attempts at amigurami.... First, I tried to make a quick frog for a birthday gift. It didn't turn out the way I wanted at all, but Baby L loves chewing on it. G9 watched as I searched online for amigurami patterns and begged me to make the bom-bomb from Mario. After I finished it, E3 wanted a blue bom-bomb and E6 wanted a Mario star (not pictured).






I think I'll stick with baby blankets.

Grannies for Babies

I've got two new preemie blankets to show you. It's so much fun to see the blankets adding up. They're so pretty stacked on top of one another.
For this blanket I used two different square patterns.


The border was fun because I tried an 'x' stitch that I had never done before.


A cute little knotted cord adds a bit of fun to the hat.


I think the large granny square blanket works up the fastest, but the last few rows always seem like they last forever.


I've been wanted to try a bonnet pattern, and this one was really easy.

Two more preemie blankets

We're on our way to meeting our goal of collecting 35 homemade baby blankets for the NICU. I've had a number of people tell me they are stitching away!

Here are two more (with hats) that I've worked up...

Ripples are one my favorite types of blankets to crochet.


When I finished this hat E3 asked me, "Is that for a doll?"


This ruffle-edge hat needed a ruffle hat to go with it.

Purposeful Crochet

Our youngest son, Baby L is now seven months old. He was born in late August with seemingly no complications. However, the day after we brought him home from the hospital he was readmitted after a routine checkup showed some concerns. We originally thought he had an infection, but later found that he had some neurological issues. God has been so gracious to us, and our little one has made a miraculous recovery from the brain injury with very minimal delays. But in the first couple weeks of Baby L's life, we had no idea what his future would hold.

You can read about our NICU journey here:
Please Pray
Update
Continuing to Improve
Hard Day
Short Update
He's Home!!!

The eleven days we spent in the NICU were absolutely the darkest days of my life. Watching the heart rate and oxygen levels of our infant drop, praying that he would somehow maintain his body temperature, tubes and wires stuck through him everywhere,...not knowing when or how or if he would recover. And our story was nothing compared to most of the other families in there. This was our life for only 11 days...others were there for literally months. My heart still aches for them in a way that only a mother who has been there can understand.

One day while in the NICU we received a wrapped gift from a mom who's little one had been in the NICU a year prior. It was so sweet to receive this gift. Also, while I was there I kept myself busy crocheting hats for Baby L since staying warm was something that was hard for him to do. From the moment I came home I knew I wanted to somehow minister to the families who were going through what we went through.

Last month I announced to our homeschool group that I was hoping to get at least 35 homemade baby blankets to donate by the end of May. There are 25-35 families in the NICU at any given time, so this would allow us to give a blanket to each family. We are also collecting crocheted hats, preemie/newborn clothes, diapers, and $5 gas cards for the families. I'm teaching a group of girls at our our homeschool co-op to crochet and have hosted the first of three one-day "Crash course in crochet" classes. All of the kids and moms attending are working on blankets as well.


To kick it all off, my sweet friend, Marcy gave me a big bag of crocheted baby hats and blankets that she and her mom had made to donate when she was working as a nurse at the hospital.

Here are well over 20 hats all made by Marcy.


And nine blankets (most with matching hats) made by Marcy's mom. I wish you could see these in person...they really are beautiful.


Here's the first blanket preemie that I worked up. I used this free pattern.


Both hats I made are based on this free pattern.


I wanted an easy pattern for beginning crocheters, so I have been showing them how to make a simple 9 inch by 9 inch double crocheted square. After they complete four of them, they can sew them together and add a border. I made the teddy bear separately and sewed it on.


The border is a round of double crochet (brown), a round of single crochet (blue), and a shell pattern (yellow).

I'll keep you updated on all the blankets we collect!

By the way if you're interested in helping, leave me a comment with your email and I will send you the info on how to get the donations to me.