Sunflower Hat and Blanket

(Topic: Knitting, NICU donations)

Hi Friends!

This is a project I made at some point in the last three years, while I was in a knitting group that made blankets and hats for babies in the local NICU. I knitted quite a few, and I don't think I've posted this one before! This is one I had fun inventing, particularly the hat.

The hat  with petals! It has a crocheted border. This is before I added extra "leaves" to the green part.

The blanket is crocheted, but has a similar laciness to the hat.

Extra crocheted loops on the hat for "leaves". Some people still didn't recognize it as a flower, but it was intended to be reminiscent of Mary Cecil's flower fairies or Ann Geddes' photos, and I think of it as a sunflower.

The hat tied to the blanket with a ribbon so they don't get separated in the donation process.

 Donated blankets and hats are often basic so they're quick to knit, and I appreciate that, but I really get bored with that after a while. This one was fun because I mixed it up and invented as I went!


Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

An Angel Baby Blanket

(Topic: Stillbirth, knitting, donation)

Hi Friends!

Well, anxiety makes it hard to sleep and lack of sleep sometimes gives me migraines - not a great combo for sitting down and writing.

That said, I actually have a completed project to show you this week!

In the past I have donate blankets to the NICU, but then I found out there's a way to donate blankets to a cause closer to my heart (not that the NICU isn't a great place to donate to! Simply because of my own experience, the following cause is one I'm closer to).
I found out that my local infant loss support group, which is run out of a hospital, also supports families who are in the hospital and experience a loss.
One of the things they sometimes do is provide blankets to wrap the babies in. For this particular group, the parameters are 15"x15" (in non-gendered colors, for the tiny babies), and 18"x18" for the larger babies.

So when one of my sisters was asking for a knitting project idea, something portable and relatively quick, this seemed like the perfect thing to suggest! I provided yarn (white, acrylic) and needles and basic directions, and let her have at it.

And she turned out a wonderful blanket! I think my mom helped guide her (this sister is a beginning knitter), but the bulk of the work was my sister's.

Apparently the amount of yarn I gave her (which was from my stash!) was not quite enough to make up the full measurements. So I got asked to add a border. Luckily I had a similar yarn, in variegated neutral baby colors, to add an edging!

I started with her live edge, picked up down the side, across the bottom, and up the other side. I then added a few rows to the top, added a picot bind off, bound off one side, added a few rows and a picot bind off to the bottom, then bound off the other side.

All this worked fine, but I was having some rolling issues, so I decided to do some stitching to even things out.

Stitching the edging to the row that I picked up from. You can see the difference it makes in reducing the curl.

Here I'm stitching one of my added rows to one of the blanket rows, in effect doing an after-the-fact welt. Again, it makes a huge difference in having the edging lie flat.

From the back, you can see how I'm taking the row that was displaced by me picking up stitches, and stitching it to the edging two rows up.

The beautiful finished project! The slight widening on the ends is due to the picot edging placing a lot of stitches in a narrow space.

Credit goes mostly to my sister who created this lovely blanket, which I certain will be loved by the family it goes to! They will cherish it if they decide to keep it, and the baby will be forever snuggled if they decide to have it stay with baby.


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Crocheted stripey scrap blanket

(Topic: Crocheting)

Hi Friends,

This is a project I've been doing for a long time (as in, many years).
It started with some scrap cotton yarn I had, starting with a red stripe. Then I unraveled the (not stretchy non-wearable) socks, and those blues and yellows came next. Then I added some whole balls of cotton yarn I had, and simply added by whim from there!

I consider the red stripe to be the bottom of the blanket. This will hopefully be for a twin or queen (I haven't checked dimensions yet).

The full stripe set so far! Next is a medium blue, then a light blue. Note that for much of the center, I put a narrow stripe of green between each color, but I'm going to change up whether or not I do it, depending on what colors I do.

Literally all of the blanket is single crochet - on purpose, so that this remains a simple and easy project to pick up when I need a break from knitting lacy things!

No idea when I'll actually finish it, but I assure you that you will see pictures when I do!

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Blue and Purple: The last baby blanket

(Topic: Knitting, NICU)

Hi Friends!

As you might recall, I've been working on baby blankets to be donated to the local NICU. In fact, you've seen the in-progress version of this very blanket before! Here are the last few steps, showing how I completed it.
Also, I found out that the local infant loss support group (that I actually go to!) was getting blankets from the same knitting group, for deceased infants. Obviously with my particular background, infant loss blankets speak to me a lot more than NICU blankets, since I never actually had a child in the NICU. There are many lovely people who will continue to make NICU blankets, but I, personally, have chosen to switch to infant loss blankets only, whenever I am in the mood to do baby blankets.

I tried a lime green, but really didn't like how it looked. When I started that color, I couldn't find another color, but later when I sorted my yarn, I found the (slightly) darker purple skein you see above! I liked it much better than the lime, so I frogged the green and did a darker lavender instead.

Beginning the dark lavender.

As plasticky as this chenille is, it actually makes quite a cozy blanket!

And, done! Two shades of lavender, and a slightly different chenille used for the blue edging (thus the skewed edges - there are the same number of stitches but the light blue yarn is thinner so it doesn't make as thick or wide a fabric).

Thank you to the Loose Knit Group for donating the baby blankets that I have made to this point.


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Pookie vs. Duvet Cover

(Topic: Weighted bear in my life as a character)

Hi Friends!

Many of you know Pookie by now. He shows up in lots of posts of his own, since he represents Charlie (more on weighted bears here). But he's also developed his own personality, and I love making photo-stories of him participating in our life!

We use a duvet cover some of the time, and since our duvet is queen-sized, sometimes it's quite a struggle to get all the edges lined up right!!! This time, Pookie nobly tried to lend a paw.

Step one: find the corner, and line it up with the corner of the cover.

Lining up big things is hard when you're little.

Wait, where does that corner have to go?

Can't.

Poor Pookie!!! Thanks so much for trying to help, little guy. It's tough when the blanket is so much bigger than you are!



Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

In Progress: Blue and Purple Baby Blanket

(Topic: Knitting)

Hi Friends!

Just a little update on another knitting project I have going. This is using a chenille yarn, and is knit in stockinette for the body and garter along the edges to reduce curl.

The blue is a somewhat thinner yarn, so I might get a bit of accidental shaping from that. I'll knit till I'm out of purple, and then depending on proportions might add another color to the middle; I'll then end with blue again.

All for now - more pictures when it's done! This will be a baby blanket, and will be donated to the local NICU.


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Beautiful Green Baby Blanket

Dear Friends,

Recently one of my sisters was working on a baby blanket, for me to donate in the group I knit with (the blankets go to the local NICU). She asked me to do the edging, and I wanted to show you have the final product turned out!

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Prayer Shawl 1, and a Sunflower

Dear Friends,

One of the knitting groups I'm in, which meets at a church, makes prayer shawls/lap blankets for the VA hospital in a nearby city. I've been in that group for close to 2 years, but somehow that project somehow rarely seemed to be on the top of my pile. Well! Yesterday I finally finished it!

It is made from yarns donated to the group, but there is enough yarn on hand I was able to select the colors I wanted to work with. You can probably tell that getting enough of the same gray was difficult, but working with several different balls of yarn, and even double-stranding at one point to make it knit to the right scale and tension, I was able to create the striping pattern I had in mind.

Also, one of my sisters helped me for a bit! She did several rows in the middle boring gray part.

The loose portion on the lower right is because I discovered we'd made a hole by accidentally picking up a stitch. That is easily fixable by just dropping the same stitch, but because I found it many rows too late, dropping the stitch made a long ladder of looseness down to where the hole was. I evened it out quite a bit, but some of it will need some time to settle down and even out.

Close-up of the loose section and the inadvertent gray-shade color changes. Not perfect, but warm and cuddly.

The sunflower on top of the shawl is a crocheted wall decoration, made by request for a friend. It's all cotton yarn.

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Valentine's Day Baby Blanket

Valentine's Day Baby Blanket

For donation

Last week, I finished this baby blanket I've been working on since Christmas. Planning ahead, I knew that Valentine's Day is the next holiday that many people do, so I picked out a red and a white acrylic yarn that was soft and pretty.

The pattern is simple (and I made it up as I went along). Knit for a while in stockinette, make a small stripe of the other color, make a section that is the opposite of stockinette, with all the purl bumps toward the front, go back to stockinette, and right before the half way, do a stripe of the opposite color. Then, switch main colors and finish by reversing all of that! I also made the hearts by purling those sections in a heart shape, then stitching around the edge as a surface embroidery so the hearts would stand out. Then I crocheted a picot edging around it, using opposite colors.

Here it is being shown at my knitting group. Then it will be taken to the NICU for the little ones who need some extra warm snuggles.

Yours, Sarah


To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

 Resource list: www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Cuddly Yellow Blanket

 

 Buttery Snuggle Blanket

 This is a blanket I started out just because I had a pretty yarn! It was soft, and I loved the yellow with little tufts of other colors. I only got 2 skeins, though, because it was in the clearance bin and that's all there were.

I probably could have started out smaller, or swatched the gauge, but I didn't, so this is the blanket after I used up both skeins:

 I took the picture while yarn hunting. My goals were: color match, and just as soft and nice to the touch. For this particular project, I was not being picky about the material.

Here you can see it close up, along with some of the tufted colors (which were orange, purple, lavender, pale green, and white). The skeins below are some of the chenille I found that matched what I wanted:

 

Here you can see the brand and style. I got several skeins of yellow, which I used most of, and one skein of each accent color.

Here they are all together, with my started piece on top:

 So then I had to figure out how I wanted to proceed. I figured out I wanted a narrow stripe of accent color right next to the first portion, and I decided the purple might be best. But I got this far and realized I didn't know how wide I wanted the yellow to be:

Well, I did a bunch of calculations for proportions of the blanket, and based on the width I had, and only one stripe of each accent color, I was able to figure out how wide to make the yellow stripe, at least approximately, and then once I had the first one done, I knew how many rows to make the subsequent yellow stripes:

And here is the finished product. Super cuddly, warm, snuggly, and wonderful. I originally thought I'd make a baby blanket from that variegated yarn, but once I got going, I realized it was closer to crib size... and now I just love it too much, and it's my lap blanket for couch snuggles. It's wonderful.

Yours,
Sarah

Our Tiger Cub's Blanket

Dear Friends,

In my previous post about Dolly Parton, I mentioned that I had made a blanket, and that working on it helped me in my grief journey. This post is sharing that blanket!!

It is a cotton blanket, crocheted with just single crochet. The interest is in the variegated yarns and which colors I put where. I knitted a few things while pregnant, and started crocheting this blanket relatively later in the course of things. It was not yet done when we passed Charlie's due date, and it still wasn't done when we found out his heart had stopped, when he was born, and when he was buried.

The day we came home from the hospital, we sent the empty car seat home with my parents (I can imagine this must have been rough on them. I'm so grateful they were willing to take it out of my sight, though). Later, that day and over the next few days, I shoved some things in boxes, including a few unfinished projects, yarn, pattern books, and everything I had with them. Shoved them in, not really looking, knowing that going through it right then, or working on it, would hurt hurt hurt so much.

When we moved (about a month after his funeral), we took back the car seat and boxes, since we had a basement to stow them in. And months later, I don't remember what I was looking for... maybe a crochet hook or knitting needles that had been shoved in the box with everything else, or maybe I was cleaning up odd corners... I rediscovered these projects. And it was sad, and hard, but at this point I could at least look at the projects. I hadn't knitted, sewed, or crocheted anything in those months.

Looking into the box, the blanket spoke to me, and I felt like I should work on it. And picking that up, and deciding to finish the blanket for Charlie, woke my fingers back up to the soothing rhythm of handwork.

This is the blanket as it appeared before I packed it up, roughly at the spot where I stopped:

The red stripe was intended to be the midpoint. In fact, starting this blanket again, and finishing it, led me to do many more projects, attempt an Etsy shop, and join a knitting group that donates baby blankets to the local NICU.

This is the blanket, finished except for weaving in the ends:

The blanket is now stored in the box of Charlie's things, which includes a blanket made in his memory by someone in my knitting group, photos, papers, the funeral guest book, things with tigers on them, and many many other things that remind me of Charlie. Much of the clothing we bought and toys we got while I was pregnant I have set aside for possible future kids, as hand-me-downs from their older brother. I may discover that some of them remind me too much of my boy and need to be tucked away, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Here is a picture of the final, finished blanket:

Yours,
Sarah

P.S. Always feel free to pass along the link to the spreadsheet (www.tinyurl.com/infantloss) or tell people about this blog, if you think it will help them.

Movie Review: Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors

Hi Friends,

Not long ago, I was poking through the DVD options at the library, for something to watch while knitting. I do this often, and, as usual, came home with a handful of titles that caught my eye, some of which I was familiar with, and some of which just sounded interesting based on the blurb on the back of the case.

One of the movies I came home with is Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors. At the time, I did not realize that it had aired as a Christmas special, but that was only relevant to the intro where Dolly Parton introduced it. Click here to read the summary on IMDB

My review that follows WILL INCLUDE SPOILERS. I will discuss important plot points. If you want to watch it and be surprised, do not read further.

Learning and Growing

This is a tree in the cemetery. I don't know what kind it is.

Dear friends,

I recently learned a phrase that I find beautiful, and really hits the nail on the head.

Have you ever noticed how, in English, we have no real, common word for a parent who has lost a child? We might call them a a loss parent, maybe. I suppose bereaved parent is pretty good.

However, in German, they can be called Verwaiste Eltern. This means orphaned parents. Sometimes I really feel this way - but instead of someone missing who should be caring for me, I feel like the missing person is one I should be caring for.
One of my German aunts told me this word. I'm really glad she did. I am more comfortable expressing myself in English - I have a better grasp of nuance - but every once in a while there is a word or phrase that just encapsulates an idea perfectly.

Edited to add: my mom pointed out there is an English book called "Orphan Mother" and that it's a phrase. Which is cool! I'd never heard that before. I like it.

The azalea by our front step.

I noticed I have started looking at things differently now. Maybe not majorly, but little things. I notice flowers more, and their details, so I started doing more photography and learning how to capture light and color and texture.
I notice nice phrases of how to say things related to loss. I notice everyday bits of language that I never before noticed could be harsh (Click here for my post about what not to say), and so I blog about them so you can also access my insights if you are interested.

One of the crocuses I planted at Charlie's grave.

I'm also learning new skills, and coming back to old skills. For instance, since I wanted Charlie's grave to be beautiful, and the cemetery allows us to plant (within a certain distance from the headstone), I am now learning to garden. I've even expanded this: Charlie has the potted garden on our front step as well, and I have a veggie garden out back, too! The beans are going to do well, and maybe the peas, spinach, and kale. Not as sure about the others, yet! I'd helped my mom garden when I was a kid, so I know how to plant, weed, and harvest, but I don't have a lot of the knowledge about timing or what to do if a plant is poorly.

Anyone know what this is? I planted it at his grave, but threw out the bag. They are bulbs.

After Charlie was born, I took a long break from crafts of all kinds. I'd been excitedly working on a baby blanket for him, and so I put it in a box for several months and didn't touch anything. However, finishing that blanket brought life back to my hands, and that's when I started my Etsy store. I knit and crochet a lot now, though I haven't done as much sewing yet. Some of what I do, I do for the store, some for myself, and some for a local group that donates baby blankets to the local NICU.

A forget-me-not bloom, from his potted garden. On my jeans.

I'm also rediscovering my love of drawing. I took part (am taking part - I'm not actually done) in a creative healing workshop. It was conducted exclusively online, and allowed me to participate at my own pace, though the structure was one creative expression per day. I primarily chose drawing. If you haven't been seeing my posts on Facebook, search for #MWAH2017 or #MAYWEALLHEAL. If you're not on Facebook, let me know in the comments if this is something you would like to see me post about, or if you know me personally, ask to see my sketchbook!

A double narcissus, from his grave. Post-rainstorm.

I've also picked math tutoring back up, and am generally exploring who I am. I'd planned to be a diaper-changing mama. Being a memory-keeping mama is taking some adjustment and exploration. I still have days where I don't function well. But I also have days (or moments) when the beauty breaks through the clouds and lights up my world.

Most sincerely yours,
~ Sarah

Infant loss resource document: www.tinyurl.com/infantloss