baby sets

About a week ago I called the hospital where my daughter spent the first week of her life in the NICU (not long in retrospect, but it sure felt like it at the time). A nurse said they would like to have some hat/bootie sets and got really excited when I mentioned bereavement sets. The nurse I was speaking to felt bad for her excitement and responded, "It isn't good that we need them, but we do." I knew what she meant.

I do have a bereavement gown on needles, but I ran out of yarn and couldn't find it at the one store I've been to. I'm fairly certain I can find it locally, but may need to order online. I attempted another, but it just didn't work out well at all, so I don't have any photos of those to share just now. What I do have are pictures of some little hat sets that I will be donating for baby Marlowe.

For the yellow set I tried two new patterns and I really enjoyed both of them! I will be knitting them again in the future. The hat pattern is called Spiral Preemie Cap. Beth's Easy Knit Baby Booties really were easy to knit! I was also able to follow the instructions for the crochet tie! That's a first for me. I thought about knitting the whole bootie yellow but liked the idea of the white top looking like a little sock. The pink hat and the green striped hat on the right were both knit using a rolled brim pattern. The light green hat is a non-pattern and the striped hat on the left was using the little striped hat pattern of mine. All of the other booties are from the pattern called Michelle's Booties.

Mystery Photo Revealed

Remember my mystery project that I posted about last month? Well, I finally got the finished item in the mail and since it has been received I can post the FO picture!

My friend Michelle taught me how to make a rag quilt! It's the first quilt I've ever made. I cut the squares and sewed them together, then snipped and washed and voila! It was easy and fun. I had enough scraps to make a similar small one that I'll donate to the hospital. Also I mistakenly bought more then twice the flannel needed so I figure I can make some simple blankets to donate as well.

I made it for my friend Jenni who had a baby boy last week! Congratulations Jenni and family on the birth of baby G!

And the winner is...

Rachel! Congratulations! Rachel has won our contest for Aaron's Afghan. Now you may wonder why there are three names in the bowl - well the reason for that is the girls and I were having so much fun drawing names that we decided to create a second and third prize (my 8 and 10 year old daughters did make sure to tell me that most contests have first, second and third places anyway LOL!). For the second and third place winners we have a pair of Clover bamboo knitting needles and a set of stitch markers.

Rachel, Pearly Pink & Vikki please email us at aarons_afghan at yahoo dot com. :)

Thank you to everyone who has sent in squares for Aaron's Afghan so far.

For Emma

Last month I had in mind to knit a bereavement set in honor of the memory of Emma Grace. The skirt of the gown was knit in the diagonal slip stitch pattern found in the Vogue Stitchionary Vol. 1 with a crochet ruffle across the bottom (as well as on the sleeves). The bodice is based on the Little Sunshine Burial Gown (PDF). I had trouble finding ribbon of a matching color so for the waist I knit an I-cord. The booties were made using Michelle's Preemie-Newborn Booties pattern which is very simple, cute and easy to personalize. The hat is just a basic hat with a modified version of the diagonal slip stitch. All items were knit using Caron Simply Soft yarn.

I haven't yet made it to the post office and tonight I read on Candy's blog about a woman in Idaho who is looking for items to be donated to her hospital. Because Candy is sending her current donations up there, I decided to send this gown up as well. It will go in the mail tomorrow morning.

Emma's life has blessed me even though she and I never met. I look forward to the day when I will know her.

a candle - it isn't much

My daughters and I lit this candle today in memory of a friend's baby who spent only three days with his family here on earth before leaving for the arms of Jesus just yesterday. May the memory of that sweet little one forever burn in the hearts of his family and all of us whom he touched with his far too short life.

God be with Little Grady's family, now and always.