If you’re reading my main blog feed, this post may take you by surprise – however at one time I enjoyed crafting and blogged about it often. Recently I’ve been finding more time for this, helped by the inspiring news of pregnant friends, so hopefully this is the first in a resurgence of craft-related articles. There are category-specific feeds if you’d rather only read the tech and/or php content.

So, I crocheted a blanket for my friend’s baby (welcome, Benjamin!)

This is an adaptation of a ripple pattern from the 7-Day Afghans book (I forget the name of it but it’s the one with pointy ripples shown in pink on the cover). I used double strands of sirdar snuggly, with white plus either white or colour on every row, and the stripes are kind of random, mostly depending on which colour I packed on which trip. It is an easy pattern, and with a 6mm hook and double strands, it came up quite quick … it was much narrower than the number of stitches, so if you are adapting this pattern, cast it on quite wide (this is as much a reminder to myself as to you!)