Another Way to Knit a Giant Chunky Blanket

By now we’ve probably all seen giant blankets knit with roving or many strands of yarn held together, worked with arm knitting or using giant knitting needles.

Both of those are valid methods, but here’s another thing to try if you don’t want to have a giant blanket hanging on your arm for a couple of hours or to hold the weight of a big blanket on a pair of knitting needles.

Lily Ardor made her chunky knit blanket using a sort of finger knitting technique in which the loops are pulled up across the row, then you make more loops to go inside those loops. Because roving sticks to itself pretty easily you don’t have to worry about the stitches dropping before you get back to them.

This is an interesting idea and might be an easier way to do it for people who can’t hold all that weight (she says her blanket is about 7 pounds) on their arms while they work, because this way it can sit on a table as you work.

Have you knit one of these giant blankets? I’d love to know how you did it.

[Photo: Lily Ardor.]

Next Pattern:

This swirly square stitch knitting pattern from Studio Knit is a lot of fun, and it looks kind of complicated without being difficult at all.

The swirly nature of the block comes from regularly placed increases, as the pattern is worked in rounds from the center out. Switching between sections of all knit stitches and all purl stitches (which gives you stockinette and reverse stockinette respectively when worked in the round) adds to the off-kilter flair but makes it really easy to knit.

You can work it in a single color or change colors regularly. This isn’t really a change colors randomly kind of pattern just because it looks better if you work a full repeat in a single color, but you know there are no rules so you can do whatever you want.

You can also make it any size you like, and indeed use any yarn you want. This one is blanket sized and used five colors of worsted weight yarn, but you can use any yarn and corresponding needles (you’ll need double pointed needles and circulars of various lengths, depending on how big you want to make your square).

For a start, why not grab some cotton yarn and stitch up a swirly washcloth? You could still use a couple of colors if you want, jsut for fun.

Once you try that, you’ll probably want to make a bigger version, and you could definitely use more colors than Kristen did (or just one color if you prefer), you just need to make sure you change colors at the beginning of the pattern repeat to keep everything looking good.

If you’re ready to start (and I know I am!) you can grab the free pattern and check out a video to help you get started at Studio Knit.

[Photo: Studio Knit]

Next Pattern:

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