Time for baby blankets

Spring is in the air, birds are building nests, trees are budding and a couple of ladies at my work are now showing.  Ahhh, the circle of life continues.  So in celebration of these new lives, I've once again taken up my crochet hook and have started working on little baby blankies for the new babies.

A few months ago I saw this post which really inspired me to try to duplicate the pattern.  The pictures were clear enough for me to figure it out.  Here's what I did, granny squares with each color making up 3 rows, so if a granny square had 3 colors, it was 9 rows around.  Except for the tiny 3 row granny squares, those were made up of a single color for the first row, a 2nd color for the next 2 rows (3 rows total).  Easy peasy!

Honestly my granny squares were actually square when I completed each one, but once they were stitched together they began to stretch into odd shapes.  C'est la vie!

So then I started working on a 2nd blanket for our 2nd mother-to-be.  I found this super-thick pattern that I love for this blankie.  The front has a distinctive vee-shaped design which repeats and the back has a wave-looking pattern running the length of the stitch.  The pattern is made up of one row of single crochets and the next row is a double crochet, then 3 front post double crochets in the second stitch over,  repeat fpdc across and only use double crochets at the start & end of each row as needed.  You end up with an odd little pocket across the back of the blanket, as you can see in the bottom picture where I stuck a pen in to show the overlapping layers.

While I do love this pattern, I realized that this pattern is a little too extravagant in terms of yarn & time needed.  I needed to quickly whip out a baby blanket that is a little lighter for summer.

For now, I have abandoned the thick and luxurious blankie in search of something else.  What I settled on is a simple baby blanket made up of 3 colors, each color consists of 3 rows.  First row is dc across.  Second row starts with a dc, then the rest of the row is made up of a repeating stitch.  I know this stitch has a name, but at the moment it escapes me, so here's the directions on how to work the stitch:  YO, insert hook in 2nd stitch over, YO and pull up a loop, YO and pull through two loops.  *YO, insert hook in original stitch again & YO and pull up a loop, YO and pull through last two loops on hook.**  Rep from * to ** once more so you end up with 3 half-finished dc originating from the same stitch & 4 loops on hook.  YO and pull through all loops to close the top of the stitch.  Chain one, repeat stitch.  Third row is same as first, dc across.  Then change color for next row.

Hope that made sense.  If not, please leave comments and I promise to do a better job of explaining the method to my crochet madness.