A poppy blanket for baby Poppy

A month ago friends welcomed their beautiful little daughter Poppy into the world.  A new baby is a great opportunity to get creative.  With Christmas and the multiple gifts I was making I didn't have much time to think about it until recently.  I spoke to Tom about what he thought and he asked if I could make a blanket with poppies on.  He even offered to pay for the yarn, yes, you did read that correctly.

First I referred to Ravelry to see if I could find a pattern for a crocheted poppy within a square.  I found some beautiful pattern but this is the one that caught my eye because it was simple yet very effective.  

Poppy in granny square

by Crochet- atelier

My next step was of course choosing the yarn.  I made my way to Knit Nottingham and selected my double knits.  I then turned around and spotted the sparkly red chunky yarn!  It just had to be purchased so the double knit went back and the chunky came home with me.  I am so pleased it did because the weight if the blanket and the warmth is just wonderful.  It also worked up really quickly and made a very nice sized blanket.

I decided to make the blanket up of four quarters.  Two of them would be made up of two poppy squares and two granny squares and the other two quarters would be made up of large granny squares.  

I decided to join as I went along, I tried slip stitching the squares together and it worked brilliantly.  It looked neat and left no gaps between clusters which some joining methods can.

Once all the joining was done I decided to edge the blanket with the red and black, I started by making a row of half trebles in the red and a row of doubles in the black.

Here is the finished item.

Finally here is me giving the lovely Poppy a cuddle under her new poppy blanket.  I think she looks rather happy with it.