My First Oddball Baby Blanket

In my recent post about how to do a double crochet decrease, I mentioned that I had become active in a knitting forum called KnittingHelp.com. This forum has allowed me to help and chat with people just like me from all over the country who enjoy knitting and crocheting. On this site, I also found a forum about charity knitting and was very interested in that because I have done knitting and crocheting for charities myself for a lot of years.

In this Charity Knitting forum, there was a thread for something called Northeast US Oddball Baby Blankets which sounded very interesting to me so I checked it out. I discovered that lots of crafty people (men too, not just ladies) come up with names and color combinations for baby blankets to be handmade and given to a hospital or other charity for babies. One person starts it then sends it along to the next, and so on until it is complete. Then one more person crochets a border around it and sends it back to the person who will deliver it along with the card that has accompanied it on its journey and has been signed by all who have worked on the blanket.

What a wonderful idea! I just had to get involved in this. So I put my name in as a likely border crocheter, and look what I received in the mail today from a nice lady in New York...


This blanket has been named Jersey Devil and has been knit using Caron Simply Soft entirely in red. So far it has been worked on by people in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York. Now I will finish it off here in Massachusetts with a crocheted border in the same Simply Soft Red yarn.


Look at all the different beautiful stitches these clever crafters have used in making this blanket. Each one has knitted about 5 inches of their chosen pattern, keeping the first and last 3 stitches of each row in garter stitch. It is so soft and cuddly, and most definitely made with lots of love.

I think the baby who receives this blanket will surely be blessed by all the love that has been stitched into it.

If you have the urge to do something nice for someone you don't know and you're looking for a new handwork project, check out KnittingHelp.com charity knitting or other charity links and pick one that suits you. Besides being a nice thing to do, it will just make you feel good!

Once I figure out how I will crochet the border and then get it done, I will certainly show you the finished project before mailing it off to its final destination.

Happy Stitching!

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