Preemie Love Blanket

This baby blanket features my handwriting! I wrote “love” on a background of my Many Hearts design (the tiny nested hearts). Preemie Love Blanket was originally created as part of a promotion with Sunflower Cottage Crochet.

Interlocking & Mosaic

This design can be done using one of two colorwork techniques: interlocking crochet or overlay mosaic crochet.

Both options are done from the bottom-up and include left-handed instructions as well.

As always, Preemie Love Blanket comes with the fully written pattern & charts for both techniques.

Size

The designs in this category include anything larger than a baby blanket (see other category page).

Some of these designs are repeatable images (so they can actually be made much smaller as well).

Many Hugs

I also have a similar blanket that says “Hugs” instead of “love”! See Many Hugs page.

Or check out all the designs that use this Many Hearts nested-hearts design!

Original Blog Entry

I’m new to designing, new to having a blog, new to this world of turning my hobby into a business. It seems like a good idea to team up with others who are more established.

This pattern was created in response to a challenge from Sunflower Cottage Crochet to create a pattern suitable for a donation to a NICU or other preemie charity. They will be featuring one pattern a day from different designers for the month of August, 2020. And we will all be using the hashtag #preemiecrochetchallenge2020 so you can find the projects easily! Don’t forget to tag your works too!

The challenge is that each free download (see below for the link) will be considered a pledge to make that pattern and donate it by the end of November (which is Preemie Awareness Month). I don’t have a nearby NICU centre (since I live in the middle of nowhere, Saskatchewan), but I do have a new baby niece!

I will likely have to make this blanket again because I have 3 children and 2 blankets – not a good ratio!

Alice, My Preemie

This pattern holds a special place in my heart because my first baby was preemie. She was born at 36 weeks – which is considered a late premature.

Some babies are fine at this point, others can still have a lot of problems.

After a 30-hour labour, my little 5 lb 13 oz girl was born.

We stayed in the hospital for 5 days because baby Alice needed to stay in the warming isolette for a day or two (the details are a bit fuzzy to be honest).

Failure to Thrive

The first few months at home were stressful. She hard a hard time eating. She always wanted to sleep. She dropped down to 5 lbs 3 oz and was in the 6th percentile for weight and the doctor considered diagnosing her “failure to thrive”.

Somehow we made it through. And I have a proud-mama-picture of her at 3 months old, FINALLY over 8 lbs!

Heart Baby

During labor there was something on the monitors that made the doctor worry. At a few days old we were sent to do a few tests (see picture with the millions of cords on my tiny little Alice).

They needed to wait a little while and see if the heart murmur Alice was born with was going to be a problem. Apparently there are quite a few babies who are born with murmurs, but they tend to grow out of them or they just don’t cause any problems.

At a few months old, we discovered that the heart murmur she had since birth was not benign. She would need surgery.

A 7 months old, my baby girl underwent a balloon valvuloplasty to correct the pulmonary stenosis. One sentence doesn’t describe the stress.

But everything went smoothly. Every few years they check on her heart and so far, so good. She’s growing like a weed (do they say that about kids everywhere, or only here in Saskatchewan?). And she’s a sweet, kind, caring 5 year old now (well, she’ll be 6 in three weeks).

But, Back to the Crochet!

I could tell you a completely different story about the baby in this picture, but I’ll save that for another time. She’s my 3rd and she’s just as sweet as her older sister and brother.

I crocheted this blanket using both the techniques I make my patterns for. The orange and blue one (with the thick blue envelope border) is mosaic. The colors seem more accurate in the picture with my baby versus the picture with the older kids holding the blankets but either way, you get the point, you can see the hearts and the word “love” and it’s soft and a good size.

Interlocking Crochet Verus Overlay Mosaic Crochet

The purple-on-purple blanket is interlocking crochet. It’s slightly smaller because there’s no extra border. This technique also uses *slightly* less yarn.

I’m also MUCH faster at crocheting using the interlocking technique. It is sort of difficult for me to constantly be using the front loop or back loop of a stitch. Based on what they show in the magazines, mosaic seems to be the more popular choice. But I will definitely be sticking with the interlocking technique!

Another thing to note is that I used a medium (4) weight yarn but you could easily use a different yarn! When I use a baby or sport weight yarn I usually get about 6 stitches per inch which would make the finished blanket around 20″ (about 51 cm).

Baby Melody snuck into this picture where I’ve laid the interlocking blanket on top of the mosaic one to compare sizes. I hadn’t finished crocheting the interlocking one yet based on the yarn attached at the corner.

The overlay mosaic crochet technique requires that you cut your yarn at the end of every row. You can leave the ends as a feature or hide them in an envelope border.

Sunflower Cottage Crochet Preemie Challenge

As I mentioned earlier, this pattern was created in response to a challenge from Sunflower Cottage Crochet. #preemiecrochetchallenge2020

They will be featuring one pattern a day (suitable for a donation to a NICU or other preemie charity) from different designers for the month of August, 2020.

Many centers have restrictions on the size of blanket you can donate (for example, often it must be less than 30″). Make sure you do a gauge swatch if your finished piece needs to be a certain size.

Free Patterns

Each free download (offer expired) of patterns involved in Sunflower Cottage Crochet’s Preemie Challenge will be considered a pledge to make that pattern and donate it by the end of November (which is Preemie Awareness Month).

You can buy this pattern on Etsy or Ravelry (it is on sale on Ravelry for the month of August – add it to your cart to see the automatic discount).

Promo expried. For 3 DAYS ONLY (August 25 & 26 & 27, 2020) you will be able to download this pattern for free on Ravelry! The code “Preemie2020” is being used for every pattern in this promotion.

I will send a tally back to Sunflower Cottage Crochet and they will announce the numbers (downloads/pledges) on their pattern round-up post.

I can’t wait to see everything you all create!

Personal update: 977 of you took advantage of the free promotion code! That is a lot of blankets! Wow! I did not expect so many! Great job everyone!

Preemie Love Blanket Details

Here you can find the details on yardage and finished size the Preemie Love Blanket. This information is also included in the listings on Ravelry and Etsy but I like to also include it here to be thorough.

I used blue and orange for my mosaic crochet sample and purple with purple for my interlocking crochet sample.

Interlocking Crochet

Interlocking crochet is a colorwork technique where you create two layers of mesh locked together. You work one row at a time, alternating between the two contrasting colors.

Interlocking crochet / LFM crochet file includes:

  • line-by-line written pattern for right-handed crocheters
  • line-by-line written pattern for left-handed crocheters
  • instructions on reading a chart
  • a one-page chart (good for viewing on a screen)
  • a multi-page chart (better for printing)

Details

  • Chart is 121 x 121
  • Gauge: 16 stitches x 8 rows = 4”
  • 30″ x 30″ / 76cm x 76cm
  • 5 mm hook (H-8)
  • Worsted weight yarn (1065 yards total)
    • Main color (MC) (first color used) – 520 yards plus 25 for optional border
    • Accent color (AC) – 520 yards

Interlocking Crochet: Wrong Side

I used dark purple as the Main Color (MC) for my interlocking crochet sample of Preemie Love Blanket. This photo shows the wrong side. The back shows my writing backwards and the little hearts are pointing upwards now.

Original Overlay Mosaic Crochet

For Preemie Love Blanket I used the same chart for both the interlocking crochet option and the overlay mosaic crochet option. Therefore you can see the interlocking mesh dots on the word “love” even when you use the overlay mosaic crochet technqiue.

Read more about these techniques at https://ashleeslint.com/tutorials/interlocking-and-mosaic-crochet/.

You’ll receive both a single-page chart and a multi-page chart along with the fully written pattern. Mosaic crochet charts have x’s marked on them for the dropped double crochets.

Mosaic Crochet file includes:

  • line-by-line written pattern for right-handed crocheters
  • lin-by-line written pattern for left-handed crocheters
  • instructions for the optional envelope border
  • instructions on reading a chart
  • a one-page chart marked with X’s (good for viewing on a screen)
  • a four-page chart marked with X’s (better for printing)

Details

  • Chart is 121 x 121
  • Gauge: 16 sc blo stitches x 16 rows = 4”
  • 30″ x 30″ / 76cm x 76cm
  • 4.5 mm hook (US7)
  • Worsted weight yarn (1200 – 1500 yards)
    • Main color (first color used) – 600 yards
    • Contrasting color – 600 yards
    • Optional envelope border – 300 yards

Mosaic Crochet: Wrong Side

I used blue as the Main Color (MC) for my overlay mosaic crochet sample of Preemie Love Blanket. The wrong side is just stripes but you can sometimes see a faint illusion of the design as well.