Getting Froggy With It

Will Smith may have gotten jiggy with it but around here, we're getting 'froggy with it.'  With the anticipated birth of our first grandchild, a boy, in August, we are buying all kinds of clothes and items with little monkeys and puppies and frogs on them.  More so the frogs since my son-in-law is science teacher and likes that sort of thing.  (My daughter loves him, what can I say?) 

Here's a little blanket that took no time at all.  I found the material at JoAnn's and used about a yard.  (I did trim off some of the edges to even things up.)  This is kind of a velour microfleece plush fabric that is incredibly soft.  You can complete this project in a couple of easy steps.  Trim, Fold and Sew.

1.) TRIM up and even up the edges of the material.  The edges shed like nobody's business so after you are finished cutting, you might want to take the blanket outside and give it a good shake or two to get rid of all the little floating fuzzies.

2.)  FOLD and SEW but first, there are a couple of tricks you need to know.

 Fold the edge over just about an inch.

Use a stretch zig zag or a herringbone stitch that will both keep the edge from shedding and be decorative.  (I used a herringbone).

Here is the finished blanket along with the towel set I purchased to go along with it as a shower gift.

Knit Diagonal Baby Blanket

Finished this easy and quick to knit baby afghan this afternoon.  I used 4 skeins of Red Heart Baby Clouds yarn, size 15 needles, and a free Red Heart baby blanket pattern.  I used bamboo needles although I had some trouble with the knobby texture of the yarn.  It probably would have been better to use aluminum needles but I like the feel of the bamboo. 

I bought the yarn for this project before we knew the gender of the baby.  It's white with pastel flecks but apparently the baby's daddy thought the pink showed up a bit more predominately, hence the baby blue onsie in the picture. Daddy doesn't want his boy to be confused with a girl.  That wouldn't be appropriate for the future quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers.