Another baby blanket

Another baby boy is on the way.  The mom to be has selected Pottery Barn bedding in cream and dark brown with a touch of blue.  For the blanket I used Lion Brand Baby's First yarn color #099.  This is an acrylic cotton blend that feels good on the needles.  The pattern is very basic - checkerboard.  I used a 6 stitch border on the edges and 6 row border top and bottom in double moss stitch.  The checkerboard pattern alternated between stockinette stitch and double moss stitch.  I went to the magic world of knitting math to determine the size of the blanket and the size of the squares.  I wanted this blanket to be a good size to use in a stroller without a lot of excess fabric to have to tuck in around baby.  It is about 28" by 28".  Enjoy special new little one!!

Baby Blankets Everywhere

So many babies are coming into our world in the next few months.  It is a joy to create a blanket for each of them.  This mother to be selected a beautiful Fossil bag as her diaper bag.  Using Spud and Chloe all cotton yard from The Woolie Ewe (1301 Custer Road, Plano, TX - the web site is down) I matched the colors of the bag as closely as possible.  Now, what to do with all the colors? Since this is for a baby boy, I wanted it to look like a boy! Patchwork of course!  In this design each square is a different pattern.  I took ideas from basic stitches and from the book Fearless Knitting.  While I did write down the pattern, it needs a little fine tuning - little adjustments I made while working on this blanket.

Basically, here is how this went together.  Three panels of four squares were knit first.  Then the three panels were joined by picking up and knitting two panels together.  I picked up stitches along both edges then used a double needle bind off to join.  After the three panels were joined, the border was added down each side, then across the top and bottom.

The baby shower is this weekend.  I cannot wait to see the new mom's face when she opens her new diaper bag and matching blanket!