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Dallas Hospital Wants Blankets for Every Baby

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parkland hospital warm up americaParkland Hospital in Dallas is the public hospital for Dallas County, which means they deliver a lot of babies in a lot of different circumstances.

They’re teaming up with Warm Up, America to try to fulfill a great — and big — goal: to have every baby born at the hospital leave in a hand-knit or -crocheted baby blanket.

To that end, Warm Up, America is requesting baby blankets instead of the regular blanket sections. Ideally they say they would like blankets to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 inches square, but if you work in the usual WUA square template you’d end up with a 35 by 40 inch blanket, which would also work. (They don’t mention it, but smaller blankets are great for preemies, too.)

All blankets need to be made out of machine washable and dryable materials for use in the hospital environment.

Check the page linked above for more details on where to send the blankets. And check out my baby blanket patterns if you need inspiration!

[Photo via Warm Up, America.] Looking for more Baby Knitting patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

Comments

  1. I would like to have the address of where to send the blankets. Please send it to my email address above. Thank you.

  4. This post is from 2014 so I don’t think that particular campaign is still going on. But lots of hospitals accept blankets, so you could start locally and see if anyone is looking for donations.

  5. This project is old, but Parkland can always use blankets of any kind. It is in Dallas you can Google for the address.

Have you read?

Book Review: Circular Knitting for Beginners and Beyond

When I discovered Kate Atherley’s book Circular Knitting for Beginners and Beyond, I wasn’t sure there was enough to say about circular knitting to fill a book. It’s a pretty short book (144 pages) and includes 10 patterns to practice working in the round on small projects, and it provides a decent introduction to the various ways of working in the round. 

The book covers using double pointed knitting needles, flexible double points and circular knitting needles with cables. It talks about working using the full circumference of a circular needle and various ways to work smaller circumference projects, such as using DPNs, magic loop and knitting with two circular knitting needles. 

In addition there’s a discussion of preventing problems like twists and ladders, swatching in the round without actually swatching in the round, grafting, blocking and weaving in ends. 

More specialized techniques likes knitting from the center out, stranded colorwork, helical knitting and jogless stripes are also explored, as well as working pieces like socks or mitts two at a time. 

There’s also some information about seamless sweaters, including the different sweater designs that can be worked seamlessly (and why you might want seams in your sweaters) and how they are worked from the top down or the bottom up. 

There are 10 patterns in the book, including a basic stockinette stitch cowl and one with a deliberate twist, wrist warmers, mitts and a pair of colorwork mittens, a hat worked in a solid color or in helical stripes, toe up and top down socks and a beret. It would have been nice to have a basic sweater pattern, too, since the book does talk about working larger garments with circular needles, but it’s still a nice collection of basic patterns worked in the round. 

If you’re already comfortable working in the round in different ways, I’m not sure there’s much for you to learn in this book, but it is a good reference for people learning circular knitting or who maybe haven’t tried all the techniques yet or need skill building projects to try. 

About the book: 144 pages, paperback, 10 patterns. Published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.