A Quick and Easy Baby Blanket to Knit

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.

Knit a Blanket that Looks Like a Quilt

Stitch Up Some Zen with This Easy Knit Blanket

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Blankets are a great blank slate project that you can change up in a million different ways. From color to stitch pattern to size, the possibilities are almost endless.

Jared Flood, the designer behind Brooklyn Tweed, was inspired by a log cabin quilt his mother made in 1995 to re-create that design in knitting, which led to more blankets and ultimate Brooklyn Tweed’s Knit and Crochet Blankets, which includes 25 patterns from an array of designers using different skills and techniques to make cozy, pretty blankets.

The patterns are divided into three aesthetic themes: traditions, minimalism and colorplay. The patterns are rated on a scale of one to five, with one being the easiest, and there aren’t any pieces rated five. Two blankets are rated one, 14 are two, eight are three and one is four.

In addition, three of the 25 patterns are crocheted, but they either use single crochet or granny stitch, so they are pretty easy even if you don’t do a lot of crochet. You can see all the patterns on Ravelry.

Some of my favorites include Rattan by Rastus Hsu, a chunky blanket worked in knits and purls with simple crossing stitches to make a raised woven look; Homewood by Seth Richardson, covers in dramatic, loopy cables; Ainur Berkimbayeva’s Tessellate, one of the beginner projects that doesn’t really look beginner but is totally worked in knit and purl stitches; Warp + Weft by Aist? Butkevi?ien?, which is mostly knits and purls but makes a fun woven look fabric that blew my mind a little bit; and the same designer’s Canyonland, a multicolored blanket with wavy stripes.

The patterns tell you how to resize them for different dimensions and include information on pattern repeats where it is possible to make a totally custom size.

Many different techniques are included here such as cables, lace, shadow knitting, intarsia and other colorwork techniques, as well as modular knitting and lots of sewing pieces together. The patterns are all presented with charts, but there are line by line written instructions available on the Brooklyn Tweed website if you need them.

The book ends with a deep dive into log cabin knitting, telling the story of the quilt Jared’s mom made and how he made it in knitting, as well as the multitude of variations you can make if you want your own log cabin style design.

The back of the book includes a little written information about some of the special techniques needed, but there are no photos.

This is a lovely book full of inspiration for knitting and crochet blankets for any skill level. If you like to make blankets as gifts or aspire to have a handmade blanket in every room of the house, these designs would be a great place to start.

About the book: 192 pages, paperback, 25 patterns. Published 2024 by Abrams Books, suggested retail price $24.99.

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