Thursday, July 11, 2013

Gale's Gallery VIII: An Easy Blanket With A Surprise

Hello,

I know lots of you read the craft posts and I apologize for the delay.  Seems like I'm always doing that, huh?  

Well, here is a gift that I've made many times for babies.  But this time, I added a twist.  This blanket is always made from cotton (polyester is hot, yucky and will melt!)  It's washable, and if you've been around a baby five minutes, you know that's important.



These blankets do take awhile to make, but are really easy.  I simplified the pattern to not have ribbing because the color changes would hide them anyway, so why do it?  Although I do love knowing how appreciative the parents are, I make these blankets to be used (and abused.)  They aren't museum pieces, that's for sure.  A few of my blankets become the favored "bankie" and are washed until they become a series of strings.  That is great! 

But many parents love keepsakes and they are afraid to ruin the blankets, so I came up with a decent replacement.



I created a Christmas ornament using the scraps of yarn I used in knitting the blanket and filling a plain glass ball with it.  That way at least part of the "bankie" will survive.  Obviously, one could make an ornament "retroactively" by placing pieces of their child's favorite blanket in an ornament as well.


BLANKET 

Since this blanket is a square, you can make it any size.  I do a 36" square.  The pattern is basically an old dishcloth one.  I use 5-6 balls of cotton worsted-weight yarn.  Some people use Sugar 'n Cream but it depends on the color you want.  ALWAYS buy the balls of yarn at the same time, checking for dye lot.  Trust me, I've tried to wing it before and it's not good.  One time I even tried to dye yarn to finish up one little corner as I couldn't find any more of that dye lot.

I'm not going to be able to teach you how to knit here, but there are lots of online sources, books/videos, as well as your local yarn shop.

Cast on 3 stitches.

Row 1: knit 2, yarn over, knit 1.  
Row 2: knit 2, yarn over, knit 2...
Continue knitting 2, yarning over and knitting across until you get to 36" wide.

Then, Knit 1, knit 2 together, yarn over, knit 2 together until you are down to the last 3 stitches and cast off.  This is great TV watching knitting as you don't really have to think much.  It also makes it's own neat border.


ORNAMENT

I will explain how to do the ornament in a different post where I will have lots of other examples of an easy technique.  But, I think you get the idea from the photo!  

Happy Knitting!

Gale


1 comment:

  1. I don't know where you find the time with all your crafts, but you sure do make some great things.
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