Crochet: Sunshine Blanket

I crocheted this blanket -- called Sunshine from the book Little Crochet Modern Baby Designs -- for my college friend who had her first baby in August.

I had started this more than a year ago, and the pattern proved too hard. It's got some pineapple stitches, and the stitch markers required  to get things right muddled my brain. I'd set it aside for a number of months. But when I found out this friend was pregnant I picked it up again and had a much easier time. My hook was flying!

My friend didn't share the gender of her baby before the birth, so I was hoping this yarn I'd chosen would be gender neutral. Of course as it worked up the orangish color in the variegated yarn started looking VERY pink and I knew this was a "girl" blanket.

After I finished this I started on an alternate "boy" blanket -- a cool technique with the corner-to-corner stitch but changing colors to make a picture appear -- but I never got into it enough to get it done before her baby (A DAUGHTER!) was born.

Basically I think this blanket belonged to this baby girl all along, since I had so much trouble doing it before she existed and then it came so easily once I was making it for her.

Now I have a work-in-progress of the owl blanket, and it's not as easy as I thought it would be because of how many color changes there are -- my yarn is getting tangled, I have knots in the yarn from just annoying yarn and I gave up at least for now