Thursday, July 2, 2015

Crib Size Baby Blanket

Baby Cabled Crib Blanket

My granddaughter is having her third baby, a girl very soon and I have been knitting a blanket for her but decided, since she lives in Washington State and the baby is due in July she really doesn’t need a knitted blanket so I am making  her a crib blanket that she can use this fall/winter.   I started by making a couple squares from the knittingmachinestwo group files that consists of a bunch of squares that some of us contributed a few years ago but my third square was one I designed and as I knitted it I came up with the idea that the whole blanket should be squares made with this pattern so this is what I came up with.  Three panels, each panel consisted of 2 sets of squares wide repeated 10 times.   I fiddled around with edging for a week until I came up with the final idea.  I wanted the edge to be two colors so I twisted the colors together and did the Worm Trim.    Here’s the picture of the 
finished blanket and edge which explains it better than I can tell you.   


UPDATE (7/17):  Baby was born before I sent the blanket but I just received a picture of her wrapped up in it and had to share, I think she likes it, she's smiling...



Pattern:
Machine: Standard Gauge Brother 970
Tension 7

Yarn and Abbreviations: Pick 2 colors Main Color (MC), Contrast Color  (CC), Upper Working Position (UWP),  COR Carriage on Right

Carriage Tension 7
According to the National Bureau of Standards, a  crib blanket measures Crib: 27x52 inches  Mine was very close to those measurements.


To make a tension swatch or just try the pattern: Cast on with waste yarn, 50 stitches and knit a few rows. Thread up your 2 colors in your antennas.    Now start with 1 of your 2 colors and knit 2 rows ending COR* Put Carriage in hold and put stitches left of 0 in hold.   With MC knit 6 rows on right side stitches. Put right side stitches in hold and push left side stitches to UWP – which is where the latches just touch the stitch on the needle (D on Brother machine, C on Studio LK 150) **With CC 2 knit 6 rows on left side of the bed. **How to knit across stitches in hold:  With carriage on the right of the needles in hold bring tail of new yarn across the Hold needles and drop it down between the needles in hold and the needles in Work.  Knit first row slowly until the first couple stitches are knitted. That’s all there is to it. Twist a 6 stitch cable using stitches # 123 (1 color)on the right and -123 (2nd color) on the left (always move stitches in the same direction).* Continue from * to * 2 or 3 times and then knit 2 rows MC, knit a few rows waste yarn and take off machine. This is your swatch, pull it horizontally and vertically and then let it rest overnight.

NOTE: You don’t have to make a swatch if you don’t care how the blanket measures when you’re
             finished.  

Now start your blanket. It can be as long as you want it to be of course.   To finish the blanket I used the “Easy Cable Join for machine knitting  from Diana Sullivan’s YouTube which is sort of a sew as you go join.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS5xDXwjRRY 

I knitted the Worm Trim below but  to make the edging 2 colors I twisted the 2 colors together with my twisting table and wound them into a ball before knitting.

NOTE:  The worm trim came out a bit tight, I did increase my tension from 7 to 8 but it was still a little tight so I pinned it out and steamed it when finished knitting.    

Worm Trim
Ewrap 4 stitches and put 4 stitches from the edge of the blanket over the e-wrapped stitches.
With right part button pushed In knit 8 rows
Pick up the next 4 stitches and knit 8 rows
Continue to the corner.

Copyright, Rosalind Porter, 2015
Feel free to share this blanket pattern with your friends, but don’t claim its yours.

ps Baby was born just before I finished this, my 6th great grandbaby