A little over a week ago I became an aunt for the TENTH time with the birth of another precious nephew. (All of these children have entered the world courtesy of my sister. Hers is officially the biggest family I’ve ever known in real life.) In anticipation of his arrival, I had been working on this crochet wave/ripple baby blanket – and because my sister loves giraffes, I included a little giraffe applique to finish it off.

MATERIALS

#3 baby weight yarn
Loops & Threads Snuggly Wuggly in Dove Grey, Cool Baby and White
Size G 4.0 mm crochet hook
Size D 3.0 mm crochet hook
Size C 2.5 mm crochet hook
6 mm safety eyes
Scrissors
Yarn needle

This is the first time I’ve ever used Loops & Threads Snuggly Wuggly – or any baby weight yarn – and it was awesome. It is super soft, light weight, and I appreciated the vibrancy of the colors. They’re not just your usual pastels.

BLANKET

Using Loops & Threads Snuggly Wuggly and a 4.0 mm crochet hook, I created a wave or ripple style blanket. An excellent tutorial can be found on the Jayda in Stitches YouTube channel. You can create any color scheme or thickness of waves you like, but I used six rows of Dove Grey, one of White, two of Cool Baby, one of White, and then back to six of Dove Grey. My blanket measured six rows of Dove Grey and five of the White-Cool Baby-White waves. The border is a simple single crochet with three singles in each corner.

GIRAFFE APPLIQUE

I didn’t think I’d have any trouble finding a giraffe applique pattern online, but strangely couldn’t find ANYTHING that fit the picture of what I had in mind, so I had to get a little creative and make this one up myself. Using my 3.0 mm D hook and beginning with a magic circle, I crocheted four rounds of white, then joined the Cool Baby blue for three rounds and fastened off. I used the Cool Baby to add little nose details. Still using the D hook and Cool Baby and beginning with a magic circle, I crocheted a six-round circle and fastened off. The ears were joined directly to the solid blue circle and shaped using a combination of single crochet with decreases in the top row. I found a great pattern for the little horns on Supergurumi and created them using the white yarn and my tiny 2.5 mm C hook. Using 6 mm safety eyes, I trimmed the posts down with a wire cutter just so they would not poke through the other side. I connected the two circles to create the desired face shape, sewed the horns to the head and then sewed the entire applique to the lower corner of the blanket.

The applique was time-consuming, but definitely worth it. The wave/ripple pattern is one of my favorites to crochet; there’s something very meditative and soothing about it. It’s also very motivating to switch out the colors in a stripe pattern because it’s easy to tell yourself, “only two more rows!” (or whatever) to keep yourself going. Sometimes it’s the little things, friends.

So what’s on your hook, or easel, or workbench, or mulling in your creative brain this week? I’d love to see your creations in the comments or on my Facebook page!