How to Knit an Urban Chic Baby Blanket

Two years ago, Holly and I made a baby blanket for Lora's baby Liv. You can only hope that when you put so much love into one project that it will be loved and adored. As luck has it, this blanket that we made so long ago, has a name, and it is Mimi. Mimi rarely leaves Liv's side. Mimi is Liv's soothing pacifier. Mimi cannot be put into the washing machine because the distance between Liv and Mimi would be too great.

It is with great love, that I have embarked on another baby blanket. This one for the most beautiful little boy of my Beffy Joy. (I think Beffy is the new BFF.) And in case you were interested, I wanted to show how you too can make a blanket such as this. Warning: This is NOT your grandmother's baby blanket. So you can take the polyester yarn that you've been saving for years and go make a pot holder.


It starts with this book, 100 Afghan Squares to Knit which has some great patterns and gorgeous afghans. However, the blankets are all "big people" sizes. So I picked my favorite squares, Sailboats, Stripes, and Speckle and created a rough layout in excel making the blanket 7 x 5 squares. Then I figured how much yarn I would need. Now yarn for a baby blanket is very important. It needs to be extra soft and washable. No one wants to go dry clean a wool cashmere blanket. Especially one that will constantly be covered in spit up, pee, poop, or blueberry jam. My favorite yarn is the Shine Sport from Knit Picks. It is 60% Pima Cotton and 40% Modal which gives it this luxurious silky soft feel. And it is 100% washable. This blanket used about 5 skeins of Green Apple, 5 skeins of Sky, 3 skeins of Yellow and 3 skeins of Cream. You will also need 1 pair of US 5 needles, 2 circular US 3 needles 29" in length, and a tapestry needle.


During it's conception, I knew that I would need some help to finish this. So I called my mom and did some over the phone eyelash batting to convince her to help me by knitting half of the squares. She came on board like a hurricane and whipped up her squares faster than you can say knit one purl one. Even Holly got in on the action when I lured her pregnant self over for dinner a few times to help me knock out a few extra squares. I love a community blanket. Unfortunately, knitting the squares is the easy part. It's the finishing that takes the longest time.

After all of the squares are finished, you need to flatten or block them. I am lazy and do not care to block to the same size, so I spray them with some water, cover them with a damp cotton rag and iron them until they are flat.


Then I layed them all out of the floor and rearranged them ten times, until I got the pattern I wanted.


Now here is tedious part. You need to handsew the squares together using the mattress stitch. The mattress stitch consists of sewing each stitch together, which in this case is 50 stitches vertically and 39 stitches horizontally. You begin with the vertical rows. After the rows are done, you piece each of them together. If I did the math right, this works out to about 3,075 hand stitches.

When you have finished stitching the entire blanket together, you need to add a pretty border. You do this by using two size 3 29" long circular needles to pick up stitches. Do one side at a time, using a simple knit, purl. I did 3 rows of Green Apple and 3 rows of Sky, but if you want a bigger border you can add more. On the top and bottom, you can pick up all the stitches, on the side you have to do a 1:4 ratio. Seen here is a detail of the edge.


When all is said and done, the final step is to sew in all the loose ends (at least 2 per square or 70 total) and work the corners together.

And finally, here is the finished project. Just in time to keep the baby warm through the chilly fall nights.

The 2 Generation Baby Blanket

One of the baby blankets that my mother gave to me is made of crochet squares, half made by my Nana, half by my mom. My Nana was an amazing seamstress and crocheted blankets for the elderly to the very end. As the story is told, my mother arrived in Texas to say good-bye to her mother (my Nana) on a Tuesday. Nana passed away 3 days later. But when she arrived, Nana was crocheting squares to make a blanket and she asked my mother to finish them for her. My mother agreed and took all the squares and yarn home with her.

Years later, my mother has finished the rest of the squares, put them together, and made a baby blanket for me. *sniff* Could it bee any more touching?

The Baby is Finally Warm

My fingers are numb and this sweat shop is closed, but Holly and I are very proud of our final blanket. It is as cute as a snuggly bug in a rug. ::pats self on back::

In order for proper credit to be given, I would like to state that I did not do any flowers. Holly and her mom knocked most of those out while I was still on my honeymoon. I did however find the yarn which is a cotton modal combination. The deciding factor was all of the great colors it came in. Lora's favorite color is orange, the pink is for the girl, and the purple is the color of the baby's room. My main job was to crank out the solids and stripes. I really did learn how to knit for this project including how to finish and knit on the round. I am now the queen of the knit, purl.

The blanket squares were finished 3 weeks ago and layed out.
We then had to hand sew each square together into strips, and then put those strips together. Finally, I was in charge of the outside edge. After a couple of false starts and ripping everything out, I finally got it to the perfect tension and the final product.

Hot off the press, we ran it over to the 4 week old Olivia yesterday.

And then there was a collective sigh of relief as I wondered what I would do with all of my free time?

Knitty Teaser

These pics are for Amy. I don't want to post the entire blanket until we've given it to the new mom and her baby girl in case they are at home peeking! This is a mere preview of a few squares from the blanket, but it is pretty darn cute. We can't get enough of it right now. It is almost completely put together, then we have to tuck in all the tails, and put a border on it. Knitting = time consuming. I seem to recall it being MUCHO easier to crochet an entire blanket.

Knitting Sweat Shop

Lora's baby is due in less than two weeks and though we had very good intentions, the baby blanket that Holly and I are knitting is less than 1/2 done. And that is with bringing in the reinforecements. Holly's mom did a bunch of squares. My first square was the hardest because apparently I didn't know how to knit, purl, but my learning curve was short and now I'm well on my way...on my 3rd square. Only 10 or so to go.

So here is my question to other knitters out there. Some of the squares are double sided, but some with a patterned flower on them are not. I am used to crochetting where it is all double sided. So do we add a back side with material, just let it go, or what?