I couldn’t decide what to make next, so I thought I would get started with the baby blankets for this years babies.

My daughters have friends expecting babies, so I will be making blue and pink blankets, because none of them are going to find out the sex before baby arrives, which is nice. I like a surprise.

This is for a baby boy. I didn’t want to make the usual beige and cream as I had made a few of them, so decided to finish off the baby blue Sirdar that I had, as I am trying to stash-bust.

I made this a little larger, suitable for a cot.

I didn’t want to do a plain granny so chose the square no: 53 from 99 Granny Squares to Crochet Book, then I realised that I had used this square before on my Gingham blanket

I finish my teddy squares a little differently to the pattern, making them into granny squares, which I find easier to join with the join as you go technique. There is a great tutorial here.

I like the nose to stick out a little so when I finish of the snout colour, I leave an extra length of yarn and I anchor this all around the next round. When I have completed the square, I pull this yarn and it gathers up to make a cup for the stuffing and I then use the remainder yarn to anchor the stuffing in place.

Then I embroider the features and I make a sc disc for each teddy and sew that onto the back to hide the embroidery stitches and stuffing on the rear and to make it look neater

The border is a shell made up as follows:

Starting in corner, 4 dc, sc in next space, 3dc, ch2, 3dc in next space all along, finishing with 4 dc, ch 2 in starting corner.

Baby James was born 2 June 2016, weighing in at 7lb 11oz. Welcome to the world baby James, I hope you like your blanket:)