Book Review: One Stitch Baby Knits

Knitters tend to love fancy stitch patterns and embellishments on projects, but making something that looks cute doesn’t have to involve a lot of fancy stitchwork. In fact, there’s a lot you can do just with Garter Stitch.

That’s the premise of One-Stitch Baby Knits by Val Pierce, a book of 22 patterns for garments, bibs, blankets and more that only uses Garter Stitch and simple shaping. That doesn’t mean all the projects are for beginners, but they show newer knitters that they can build from basic skills to make some really fun projects.

Some of the projects I really liked include the Bunny Earflap Hat (which sounds like what it is, a hat that has both earflaps and bunny ears); the Sleepy Babies Blanket, with blocks of different texture and three sleepy baby faces along the top; the Navy Striped Bib, which uses slipped stitches to add interest to Garter Stitch Stripes; the Striped Yoke Cardigan, a bottom-up raglan with stripes on the yoke; and the Little Rosebud Wrap Set, which includes a wrap sweater, bonnet and booties.

The projects aren’t on Ravelry that I can find but you can see some of them on the preview of the book on Amazon.

Six of the projects are rated for beginners, 11 are intermediate and 5 experienced, mostly because of shaping and additional elements/embellishments that add to the skills required.

The projects are cute and a great place to start if you need some new options for baby knits, especially if you like Garter Stitch and adding appliqued embellishments like animal faces, sailboats and fish to projects.

What I didn’t love was some of the beginning knitting instructions, such as when the text is teaching the knit cast on and says “again, as if you were making a knit stitch” when the knit stitch hasn’t been introduced yet. It talks about gauge and shows a picture of a swatch but doesn’t really explain how to knit or measure a swatch. It suggests when changing colors in the middle of a row that you knit the first stitch with both colors, which could definitely mess up your pattern. The description of how to seam Garter Stitch is unhelpful and there’s no photo.

But if you have a grasp of the basics and can skip straight on to the patterns, I think you’ll find something fun to knit for the next little one in your circle.

About the book: 144 pages, paperback, 22 projects. Published in 2019 by IMM Lifestyle Books, suggested retail $17.99.

Any time of year is a good time for stash busting, but if you can combine it with knitting a blanket that will keep you warm when it (finally!) gets cooler that’s even better. Let’s take a look at some fun patchwork blanket knitting patterns.

If you want to keep it super simple, you can just make blocks of garter stitch and sew them together, like the beginner’s patchwork baby blanket from Mini Baa Baa or the color block blanket from Make and Do Crew. Both projects are worked in strips and sew together, with the baby version calling for two strands of DK or light worsted weight yarn held together and the larger one using bulky yarn.

Add a little more texture with the mixed blocks of the cottage quilt throw from Mama in a Stitch. This one combines garter stitch and seed stitch and uses worsted weight yarn. She used a crochet join to make the chains on top of the blocks, but you can join them however you like. It calls for eight colors but you can use what you have, and there are three size options.

Get a real sampler style patchwork blanket with this design from Knit Sew Make. It calls for worsted weight yarn and has four size options. All of the patterns just use knit and purl stitches so this one is still pretty easy for beginners.

If you want a more complex colorwork project that will keep you entertained all season, try the Peace by Piece blanket pattern from Needle and Feather. This one is made up of two color colorwork blocks and calls for worsted weight yarn. You can choose to use just a few of the blocks and repeat them more often, or make multiples of the whole set.

The knitted patchwork recipe from Martine Ellis (free on Ravelry) uses mitered squares in fingering weight yarn, so it’s perfect for using up all your leftover sock yarn and mini skeins. This one is a tutorial more than a pattern so you can make your blanket as big as you like or keep going until you run out of yarn.

Susan B. Anderson’s 100 Squares blanket (find it on Ravelry) has a lot of mitered squares, too, but they’re arranged in fun ways and includes some quilt inspired designs as well. This one also is a bit of method more than pattern but it sure looks like a lot of fun for using all the leftovers.

Of course you can totally improvise a patchwork blanket using the yarn and stitches you like, but I hope these patterns inspire you to look at your leftover yarn in a new way.

Have you read?