Ansley's Blanket

I've always had a thing for blankets. I think it began when I had a bad experience at a sleepover as a kid. Have you ever spent the night at someone's house and found your blanket-situation at night to be inadequate? I remember being given a thin little whisper of a blanket and freezing all night. I was miffed and uncomfortable but powerless to fix my situation because what kind of rude houseguest would wake someone up for another blanket? And it stuck with me ever since, that a good, hospitable home is one with PLENTY of blankets. Thus, I have always stocked my home with blankets galore and you will never find me relaxing on the couch without one.  Not only are they practical, they are comforting to us emotionally. Picture a rainy day, laying on the sofa curled up with a soft blanket.... and you feel a sense of relaxation and comfort, right? Now picture that same thing without the blanket and it's not quite the same. What's more comforting than blankets?

I began my love for crocheting and knitting with a focus solely on a magical little thing in this world called Amigurumi. If you've never seen or heard of Amigurumi, they are little anime-inspired stuffed crochet monsters and animals and inanimate objects like brightly colored cartoonish coffee mugs and cupcakes with cute faces on them.

While Amigurumi are really fun and whimsical, I craved projects that would let me spend more time in the meditative state you enter when knitting or crocheting. Amigurumi are by nature small projects that finish quickly and half of the time you spend on them is time spent on construction (joining the pieces together and creating a face). The construction of Amigurumi can often be frustrating and I wanted more of the relaxing kind of knitting.

Combine my lifelong love of blankets and all they represent with the desire for the meditative state of long periods of knitting, and BAZINGA! ... you have my natural inclination to end up here at the decision to focus on knitting and selling luxury wool yarn blankets.

The catalyst which brought me to that realization was the miracle of my best friend becoming pregnant with her first child, Ansley. I wanted more than anything to give her a hand-knit, heartfelt gift that would not only be something she would want to keep forever, but also would be luxurious and impressively beautiful and stylish. I discovered a whole new type of satisfaction and fulfillment while I worked on her baby blanket, and I cannot get enough of that feeling! And that is why The Loveliest Lamb was born.

Ansley's Blankie was made with a beautiful merino wool crepe yarn that is no longer manufactured, so it will forever be one of a kind! I'm actually fine with it that they don't make it anymore because it was really thin yarn (which equates to extremely slow and painstaking to knit up) and required MONTHS to complete... and I actually gave myself temporary carpal tunnel syndrome with this project! It was worth it though - the things we do for our besties!