Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Dallas Hospital Wants Blankets for Every Baby

by

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?

Stitch a Play Mat with a Gorgeous Butterfly

The butterfly on this piece — the Owl Butterfly Playmat by Sophie’s Stitches — caught my eye before I even knew what the project was. Now that I’ve give it a closer look I’m still not 100 percent sure what it is meant to be for, but I still love it. 

I think it’s maybe to give you a flat surface to roll dice or play cards on, but there are no images of the project in use so I’m just speculating on that. If you know what it is, be sure to let me know!

What it physically is is a worsted weight mat (the sample is worked in cotton) that measures 14 by 24 inches, or 35.5 by 61 cm. The impression I get from the pattern notes and the photos is that you knit the rectangle plain and the butterfly is stitched on after using duplicate stitch, which is provided as a chart. 

Of course you could choose to knit some of the colorwork as you go, either using stranded knitting or intarsia techniques, or maybe some of both. It just looks like a lot of duplicate stitch (and it is!) so knowing me if I were making this project I’d probably try to knit some of it instead of stitching it all. 

The pattern also suggests that you can knit a second plain mat to sew on the back and cover up all the yarn ends, as well as making the mat thicker and a little more stable. There’s also a photo that shows fabric sewn to the back, which is also a good option if you have some fabric that has a bit of grip. 

I like the graphic on this one enough I might just make it as a table pad for our entry way table. You can always make the mat part a different dimension, just make sure you’re centering the image if you do. 

You can find this pattern on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Sophie’s Stitches]