Dear Emily,

 As this blanket is a special gift for a special baby.  I have written this post as a letter to her.  For those of you interested in commentary and information on the blanket,  I have provided this in the captions.
Dear Emily 

Voila! My fantastic blanket is finally finished.  The blue yarn is random stash acrylic but the beige 
is my own handspun. They didn't play as well together as I had hopped.  (Read I accidentally felted the
 handspun when washing this).  And So I decided backing it in fleece would make it look nicer.I was right.

  It will be many years before you will understand this letter and probably several more before you can read it for yourself.  I hope that someday you do read it but even if you never see this letter there are things that I wanted to say to you that I think should be sent out into the universe.  I made this blanket for you.  I started long before you were born and I have missed your birth by a couple of months.   I have spent hundreds of hours crocheting and sewing this blanket because I love you.

Frogs are my favorite critters so I couldn't resit adding one.

  I know we have never met, and that we will probably only meet infrequently in the future due to the thousands of miles spread between us.  I love you anyways.  I love you because I love your mother, but more importantly I love you because you are you.  I love you because of the potential you represent and because every person in the world needs love.

The elephant is also made of some of my handspun.  I love the lion's mane!
 When I first made him I left his mane about two inches long. 
For the longest time I bounced back and forth between wanting
to trim and leaving it long.  I decided to trim it a bit.

     I decided to make you a blanket, because I love blankets. A special blankets is a talisman.  It tells you that your are loved, and it can keep you warm and make you feel safe on a bad day.  Someday when  you are older you should ask you mom about her special blanket from a grandma she barely knew.  I remember it was pink and silky and had beautiful animals sewn all over it and she loved it.  I know she slept with it well into her teenage years and I can only hope that you might love this blanket even half as much.

This blanket tells the story of Noah's ark, but

Fishes

that's not the story I am going to tell you today.  Instead, I am going to tell you what each of the symbols on your blanket mean to me.  The boat and house represent a safe place for you to go when the world gets to be too much.  The giraffe represents your reach.  You can reach much further than you know.  Everything you do has the potential to change the world.  The lion is bravery, because you'll need it, kid.  It's jungle out there! 

Octopus!

The elephant is wisdom.  There is a folk saying that says that Elephants never forget anything.  Who knows if that's really true?  But I wanted to give as much wisdom as I had because I know things can be tough.  And the frog because everyone needs a little silliness.
I hope you remember that I love you, and if when you are older you ever need someone to talk to, even if I am a million miles away, I'd be happy to listen.
                                                                                             Love,
                                                                                          Aunt Amy

Sweet Love Letters from Grandma

Valentine's Day has never been a big deal in my family.  Mom always bought us valentines for school and gave us a little candy.  Once or twice I think we had special Valentine's dinners.  I have never bought a card or chocolates. I've only received one Valentine's gift --from my first serious boyfriend, and I believe that is the only time I've ever gone out for dinner on V-Day, as well.  V-day just isn't all that important to me, it's nice to have a reminder to take time for yourself or loved ones, but I've never thought it was a big deal.

But there is one big deal thing that happened every year on Valentine's Day when I was a kid.  My maternal grandma wrote us letters!!!!  We lived about 2000 miles from both sets of grandparents, so occasional visits, phone calls, and letters were huge.  And since it was Valentine's Day these weren't just any letters--they were conversation heart letters.   We were like kids on Christmas, when the envelopes arrived.  I remember ripping open the envelopes reading the letters and then pulling off the conversion hearts and eating them.  The candy was cool, but what was special about it was the letter.  Everyone loves getting mail/packages and love letters are probably about the best kind of mail you can get.  Grandma also typed a real letter to each of us and included with our conversation heart letters.  I love Valentine's Day.   Grandma died the fall of 1999 and the conversation heart letters stopped.   I have missed the love letters from Grandma,  and I missed the tradition.
So this year I wrote the love letters.
I bought a ton a conversation hearts and wrote letters to each of my 3 sisters and 1 brother and my 1 niece ( even though she is only 6 months old).  And it was a pain in the neck I don't know how grandma did it for more than twenty years for 30+ grand kids, but I plan to do it again next year and for as many years as I can in the future.  It didn't bring my grandma back, but for a little while I felt closer to her.

Conversation Heart letters are pretty easy they just require some time.

You will Need:
Cardstock for each letter you want to write ( paper work but cardstock is better)
A pen or pencil
Large and small conversation hearts  ( get at least twice as many as you think you'll need)
Powdered sugar
Water

Step one:  Dump conversation hearts out on kitchen table.  Sort them based on the words and put all the ones that are too weird to use aside--or eat them.

Step 2:  Mix up you "glue".  I didn't measure so I don't know exactly how much sugar and water you need but you'll need to mix it until it is about the consistency of thick white glue.

Step 3.  Lay out the hearts you want to us for the letter in the order you want them on your cardstock and fill in the rest of the letter with a pen or pencil.

Step 4:  Glue down the hearts with frosting glue.

It took me about an hour a letter to get a short coherent love letter.

You won't be able to say anything too profound but you can write a short mushy letter expressing your undying affection or adoration.  And kids love them or at least I know we did.