M's Baby's Blanket

The baby wave has started for sure -- all my friends are having babies faster than I can turn out blankets! Here's the latest little blanket to come off my needles.

Made using Bernat Handicrafter Cotton (white) and Knit Picks CotLin (whisper)

Thanks to Ravelry designer Mary Jane Protus for sharing the beautiful free pattern!

Ellen's Baby's Blanket - Knit Pattern

 
This square-shaped blanket is knitted diagonally using just knit stitches (K), yarn overs (YO), and knit 2 togethers (K2tog). Gauge is not that important, just keep measuring along the edge of the blanket as you knit until it reaches the length you want for one side, then start decreasing. For my blanket, I increased to a maximum of 161 stitches in the middle row.

Coloring can be all one color, or striped. The blanket shown has asymmetrical stripes of two colors - no real pattern, just freeform, though each stripe is worked over an odd number of rows so that consecutive color changes occur on different sides of the work.

Needle size: US 9 (5.5mm) - I used a circular needle to manage the large number of stitches in the middle rows.

Yarn: KnitPicks CotLin in Flamingo and Raindrop (2 50g skeins of each color)

Increasing side:
C/o 3 stitches.
Row 1: K1, YO, K2.
Row 2: K1, YO, K3.
On each row, continue in this pattern (K1, YO, knit until end of row) until the length of one edge is as long as you want one of the sides of the square blanket to be.

Decreasing side:
Row A: K1, K2tog, K to end of row.
Repeat row A until there are only three stitches left in the row.
Bind off.