Making something new: a baby blanket

This is a project I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Isn’t this the most stunning yarn? I bought it about 3 years ago at Unravel. It’s handspun and hand-dyed Devon wool, in a colorway called Dawn Chorus. There was only one skein of it at the stand, and though I’m usually not an impulse buyer, I spent all day thinking about this yarn and knew I couldn’t leave without it.

The warm colors reminded me of sunrise, and I originally imagined myself wearing a shawl made from it, drinking a cuppa on my imaginary porch. But the more I admired/stroked/fondled it, the more I realized that actually this was the ideal yarn to use for a baby blanket. It is a little fuzzy, but very soft, and absolutely gorgeous. So not long after buying it, I tucked it away, to wait until I knew I was going to have my own little one to make a blanket for with it.

And now I’ll finally get to use it. It was a little over a year ago (June 21) that I found out I was pregnant for the first time, and while that ended in a miscarriage just a month later, I am so pleased to share that R & I now have a second chance – we’re due early November and all seems to be going well. I never did get this yarn out last year, and retrospectively I’m glad as thinking about everything that happened last summer still makes me unbearably sad; it would have tainted this project a little. For now, I am happy and relieved and a tad overwhelmed by this pregnancy, which, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, really does feel like a tiny miracle. Sharing the news is a little scary, to be honest, because though I’m well into the pregnancy now, everything still feels precarious. I hope this blanket will give me something to focus my energy on.

I have a few days away in Cornwall coming up, and I’m planning to test a few lace patterns to find the right combination for our little one’s first handknit. There isn’t much of this yarn, as you can see, so I’m going to use some of the undyed yarn I bought at Wonderwool to supplement it. I’ll let you all know what I end up choosing.