Cannes Cannes' Creations - Holiday Cards

I've come to learn that the Christmas or Holiday card to the American is the New Years card to the French. Americans send holiday cards in December, the French send them in January. So I guess this means I will always be ahead of the game in my adopted country.  

As much as I'd like to take a chill pill and just not send holiday cards (finding the card, buying the stamps, writing the cards, addressing them, going to the post office!) - I just can't. I love sending a card to the important people in my life each year. Even if we don't catch up much, even if I only see them at family events.  It's a touchstone in the whirlwind that is each year.  

This year, I decided that on top of all of the other stress in my life, I wanted to make a holiday card. At first I was going to go the easy route and design a photo that I would just have printed by Snapfish or Kodak Gallery (note to self: you are an idiot for not doing this!).  But then, I just couldn't get it together to actually upload my design and order it.  Here was one of my ideas:

Cannes Cannes' Creations - Crocheting for Baby Update

I'm still chugging along with my baby blanket - my copine is due in just 7 days!!   I'm not nearly as far along as I would like to be, but I figure I have a 10 hour flight to work on it as well...

My old granny crocheting bag...ps - I just discovered the store COS (I'm in love).

Cannes Cannes' Creations - Crocheting for Baby

I've told you about my lifelong copine who is pregnant with her first baby. She and her mari recently came to visit us in Paris and we had a great time running around in the rain and eating lots of amazing French food.  It was so fun to show them where I've been living and what our lives are like way over here in France.  

Now, I'm gearing up for my trip home for Christmas and guess what - she is due the day before I land! The timing couldn't be better, especially for someone like me, who generally misses the big family "life events" since I'm so far away.  This copine is my first close American childhood friend to have a baby.  So exciting!  Since I missed the baby shower, I'm planning on showering her with gifts over Christmas and I already have one gift in the works...(don't worry, she doesn't even have Facebook, I doubt she's reading the blog!).  I decided that I wanted to make her a baby blanket.  Here is the tricky part - my friend is the pickiest person on the face of the planet.  She is a self-declared picky person, so she won't mind that I'm telling you.  The woman knows what she likes and that is that. 

She is very set on "keeping with the color palette" of the baby's room - a room that includes only one pink thing. One. pink. thing.  So, I dared not make a pink blanket - she hates the color pink.  Instead, I went on the hunt for yarn in  grays and blues to match the bed set she purchased at Dwell Studio. After a bit of Googling, I found a place that sells yarn at great prices (since I didn't know how many skeins I'd need and I also didn't know if I'd get it right the first time, I wanted to get something affordable but good quality and soft for baby).

I went to Cat'laine, 19 rue Saint Marc, 75002 Paris, metro Bourse or Richelieu Drouot.  Let me tell you, it was THE place to be on Saturday - the place was packed! They had lots of fun colors and textures to choose from, but I went with something simple - gray and this light blue/turquoise that also has little flecks of gray weaved throughout. 

My pelotes de laine from Cat'laine

I hadn't crocheted in a really long time, so I searched for a little "how to" guide on Youtube - wealth of knowledge I tell you! I got started with this video (thank you Knit Witch!) and then I learned how to do the basket weave pattern using this video (Thanks All Free Crochet!) - not bad if I do say so myself:

I think I'm going to do a stripe of gray and then a stripe of blue, but who knows, I claim artistic license :-)  I'll keep you posted as I move along in my blanket creation. I've already messed up a bit - I made my initial crochet chain too long and now this baby blanket is going to be more like a toddler blanket. But hey, I guess that just means that she'll get more use out of it!

Crocheting baby blankets - it's a dying art, don't you think? I'm bringin' it back!