Sue's Knitting Projects

As I wrote in my last post, about knitting blankets for premature babies , there is quite a demand in UK hospitals for blankets, tiny baby clothes, and also bonding squares. I had not heard of bonding squares until I started reading about knitting for premature babies. I joined a useful Facebook group , and they provide both instructions and some explanations. Bonding squares are knitted in identical pairs, usually square in shape, around 10-12.5cm square (that's four or five inches). They are used when, for any reason, a mother must be separated from her baby. This happens most often when a baby is premature. There is evidence for the vital importance of 'bonding' in the earliest hours after a baby's birth, when he or she gets to know the mother's scent. This works both ways; the baby's scent is an important part of the trigger for the mother to produce milk. Normally mother and baby would spend a lot of time cuddling, including some skin-to-skin contact,

I was looking for a new knitting project for this year, after spending much of 2016 on the knitted nativity characters , and 2017 knitting toys for my grandchildren and some young friends. Early in January I discovered this page about knitting for premature babies in the UK . The page listed several different sizes of blankets that various hospitals require, as well as some other smaller items. A similar project in Cyprus (where I live) had closed, but I knew we would be visiting my son in the south-east of the UK in April, so I set to work with enthusiasm, using one of the patterns given on the site, and some purple yarn I had bought somewhat randomly from the local thrift store. I intended to make an 18x18 inch blanket (yes, all dimensions are given in inches) but despite making an attempt to check my tension, I realised after about twenty rows that this particular pattern - which was the one called 'waffle stitch' in the knitting info pack - knitted fairly tightly, so m