A baby blanket..... worth waiting for?

There is a bit of a story about this blanket. I work with a great guy who is married his childhood sweetheart and they have been trying for a baby for 11 years. They were having their last lot of IVF when the doctor told them to take 6 months to see if mother nature would step in before the last ever attempt of medical assisted pregnancy. A couple of months later we were told that mother nature had indeed intervened and after 11 years of trying they were expecting! They are the sweetest couple ever and I know they are going to make wonderful parents, parents that are truly grateful an appreciative of the gift they have finally been given.

So of course I had to get the needles out. I wanted to make them the usual baby set of hat, mittens and booties but I also wanted to make them a blanket, a really nice one, one that meant something. I spend ages and ages trawling Ravelry and looking through the patterns I had and I started a few, a crochet one in aran weight that I quickly became to despise (it looked bulky and odd) and then I tried a basic lace one that looked like rows and rows of snowdrops. It was a relativly easy pattern, only an 8 row repeat and you only worked the lace on the knit side and just purled across the entire purl row. Needless to say it was a pig of a blanket and I went wrong with it time and time again, working it, unpicking it and generally getting more and more wound up so in the end I frogged it and starting looking on Ravely again. Thats when I came across this!

I knew when I saw it that this was the blanket for me! It stunning, worked over 20 row pattern repeat and a 15 stitch pattern, easily adaptable and beautiful finish. Heres what I got out of it:



This is the first 25 rows, I fell majorly in love with it right then and there.



I have finished it now but dont have a final pic yet, I want to get all the things together the above pic shows the overall pattern.......isnt she beautiful!

I kept the colour white as they do not know what the baby will be, I honestly believe that the gender of a baby is the one and only true surprise you ever get in this life so you should wait till the birth to find out. Have you noticed my link to mother nature with this blanket? I hope you did, this is a kind of thank you to mother nature blanket and I hope they love it as much as i loved making it.

I will (if parents allow) post a pic of baby with blanket when it comes along (6.5 weeks to go)