When I first started writing this blog, 3.5 years ago, the sproglet was just three months old and none of my siblings had any children.

In the time since, there’s been the arrival of another six babies in our family: my next sister down has had a son and a daughter, my brother a son, and, of course, I’ve had the littlest as well. And last month, my youngest sister had her very first baby, an unbelievably adorable little girl.

This is brilliant for all sorts of reasons. I’ve got lots of lovely nephews and nieces to enjoy, the sprogs have lots of cousins the same age as them for sprogging around with and, on top of all that, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to indulge my love of newborn knitting.

It’s turned into a bit of a tradition that I knit a blanket for the first born in each family (this grey one for my first nephew and this stripy one for my second). So I turned, once again, to that enjoyable pastime of browsing baby blanket patterns on Ravelry.

This time round I went for a solid coloured blanket in a waffle knit pattern. The appropriately named waffles blanket from Tin Can Knits.

Once again, I’m delighted with the finished result. It’s a lovely squishy blanket, that will be really soft and especially good for colder months. And though I do love to knit a lace pattern, I think it’s probably quite good that there are no holes for tiny fingers to get stuck in.

I gave it to my sister a few weeks ago, (erm, yes, quite a bit late, I’m ashamed to say) and she was delighted with it. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s a more pleasing present to give in the world than a hand-knitted item for a newborn.

NB, I’m sorry for the lack of decent photos here. I only finished blocking the blanket the morning of giving it away, so just grabbed a few quick ones while I could…

A few pattern notes for anyone interested in more info…

Pattern: Waffles from Nine months of knitting by Tin Can Knits. Download available for $6.

My Ravelry page is here: new baby blanket.

The pattern was straightforward and simple to follow. No need to re-read the pattern after the first repeat, and an easy, relatively quick knit. I didn’t alter it in any way and just kept going until the blanket looked about the size I was after.

After blocking, it stretched considerably, mostly width-ways, but more lengthways than I had anticipated as well.

Wool: I used a yarn that I’d tried before and knew lasted and washed well. (It’s essential to be able to wash a baby blanket in a washing machine, I think. The chances of it getting fairly frequently covered in either poo or sick are pretty high in those early months.) It’s the cashmerino aran by Debbie Bliss. Not the cheapest, at around £5 for 50g, but a really lovely wool that feels soft and wears well. I used a total of 5.5 skeins, so it cost me just under £30.

The colour is called “peacock” and it’s a lovely rich teal, which I thought was pleasingly gender-neutral when I chose it. Actually, after I’d knitted it up, I thought the blanket looked very blue, but my sister shares my opinions on the ridiculousness of gender stereotyping small babies, so she’s perfectly happy for her baby girl to be encased in a blueish blanket.

Now, what to put on my needles next?