Sunday, August 2, 2009

Blast from the Past - Baby B's Blanket

I originally posted this blanket pattern in my livejournal in 2007, but since I created this blog specifically for crafts I decided to update it a bit and move it over here.



BABY B's Blanket

This pattern is heavily based on a blanket I made previously using this free Bernat pattern: (http://www.bernat.com/data/pattern/pdf/instruction_1796.en_US.pdf) . I didn’t plan out how many stitches wide I wanted it and I didn’t use self-striping yarn... instead I sort of winged it, but loved the results. I used Caron Simply Soft Brites, one skein each 5 colors and a one-pound skein of white. In my opinion the colors meld into one another smoothly because of holding the strand of white throughout the entire blanket.

Holding one strand each of white and color A, on size 13 needles I cast on 4 stitches.
Row 1 (WS): Knit
Row 2 (Inc Row): K2, YO, K to end of row.
Repeat last row until blanket is about as wide as you would like it to be
(see note below regarding stripes/color changes).
Next row (RS): K2, YO, K2tog, K to end of row.
Repeat last row.
Next row (Dec Row): K1, K2tog, YO, K2tog, K to end of row.
Repeat last row until there are 4 stitches left on needle.
Next row (RS): Knit. Cast off.

This is such an easy pattern and can make all sizes of blankets. Use all the same color or change colors whenever you feel like it.


NOTE: I knit my chosen colors in the order they would appear in the color spectrum. I started with the pink, and when I decided I was ready to change to yellow, I waited until I was ready to knit on the RS and then cut only the pink yarn and tied on the yellow, and just kept on holding the white throughout as I changed from one color to the next. I counted how many garter ridges I had of pink and tried to keep about the same on each color (22 ridges) so that the stripes were pretty much the same thickness.

You could make the stripes all different widths and that would be really cute for a baby too. You could even adapt the pattern and stripe it like the Harry Potter movie scarves and/or ties for a “house blanket”. The sky's the limit!

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Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
This is my place to talk about crafting, what I make, and maybe even why I make it.