Knitting

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A Quick and Easy Baby Blanket to Knit

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We had a bit of a fun surprise over the summer when a friend announced they were adopting a baby, with less than a month to go until the due date.

It’s never a good idea to spring a surprise baby on a knitter with short notice, but I was game to try whipping up my traditional gift of a knit baby blanket before baby arrived.

Of course he decided to come a little early, but the blanket was done in time for our first meeting, and hopefully will be getting a lot of use in the cooler months.

The design I came up with I called the Ozark Tweed Baby Blanket. It uses a three-color tweed stitch pattern from Barbara Walker and features a contrasting applied I-cord edging. My teenaged daughter picked out the colors — shades of blue and green with an orange border — based on the colors in baby’s room, and while I wasn’t sure about the orange, I really love it.

What I also love about this pattern is that it looks kind of complicated, and while it is a 12-row repeat it’s totally logical, and it’s really just four rows repeated using different colors. You carry the colors you’re not working with up the side, so it’s easy to see which color comes next, and every other row involves slipping half the stitches, so it’s faster than it looks. And it uses worsted weight yarn for speed and extra coziness.

I spent a lot of time watching the Olympics while working on this pattern, so I can confirm it’s good TV knitting once you get the hang of it.

And while I made it baby blanket sized (and have cast on numbers for different sizes of blankets you might want to make for little ones) it’s easy to adjust the pattern to any size you might like to make. All you need is an odd number of stitches.

You can grab the free pattern from my blog.

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Textured Baby Blanket Knitting Patterns

There are so many baby blanket knitting patterns out there I could probably do a post a month full of them and not run out for a very long time. This time I thought I’d look specifically at single color baby blankets that are interesting because of the inclusion of textured stitching. This makes them easy enough for new knitters but engaging for knitters of all skill levels. 

Take the Textured Checks Baby Blanket from Janet Dubbelman for example. This project is mostly stockinette stitch, with some what looks like reverse stockinette and garter stitch thrown in to make the ridges. You can use whatever yarn weight you like to make blankets of different sizes. Find the pattern on Ravelry. 

The Seedling from Modern Made Shop is just about as easy as it comes, combining seed stitch with a garter stitch border. It calls for worsted weight yarn and is perfect for beginners. 

The Julie Baby Blanket by Elisabeth Kristiansen is another one with an easy allover stitch pattern that you can knit up in a flash in whatever size you want. (The pattern notes say any gauge but it also says 28 stitches per 4 inches, which would be a superfine or fine weight yarn. Learn more on Ravelry. 

The Oscar Baby Blanket from Snufflebean is another one with an easy repeating stitch pattern that has a really fun, graphic effect. This is also great worked in a bright color, reminding us that babies don’t have to be in pastels! This one uses DK weight yarn. 

If you want to get a little fancier, check out Sammy Bristow’s Georges Blanket. This one alternates blocks of stockinette stitch with boats and anchors made by purling on the right side of the blanket. It calls for DK weight yarn and has multiple sizes for dolls through toddlers. Check it out on Ravelry.

Another cute texture is this heart blanket with diamonds that are a little reminiscent of argyle. Yarn Sonata Patterns has this one, which is worked in DK weight yarn and comes in four sizes. It includes a chart and row by row instructions. 

Or try the pretty Seton Portage baby blanket from Knitted Wishes, which has a border of trees and textured stitches that look like snow falling. The pattern includes different options for snowflakes and doing a mirror image of the trees on each end of the blanket. It’s worked in worsted weight yarn. This one includes charts, written instructions and video tutorials for special stitches.