Pastel Striped Baby Blanket

About Me Crochet Projects

Here are some instructions to make a similar blanket to the one I made for my nibling. I've never written a pattern before, so if you have any issues following along it's probably on my end. Just do your best!

To do this, you will need several colors of yarn. I used a variegated white, a pink, a yellow, a green, and a blue. You could use more colors, or less, or the same number. One of your colors is going to be the Main Color, which will be used between stripes of the other colors. My Main Color was white.

I am going to name the colors Main Color, color A, color B, and so on through the alphabet for as many colors as you have (in my case, I have my main color and 4 others, so I'll call them MC, A, B, C, and D). If you have more than 27 colors, you're making this too complicated for yourself and I admire your ability to keep things organized.

You will be holding 2 strands of yarn together for the entirety of this project. Make sure you have a way to keep the different skeins from tangling around each other. For mine, I'd use 1 skein of a color and have 1 strand come from the center pull and the other come from the outside of the skein. Others may wish to have multiple skeins of a color and use the center pulls only.

I used single crochet stitches throughout, but if you wanted to do a different stitch you could. If you're making this for a baby, you want to avoid anything that has too large of gaps since a baby's fingers/toes could get caught in them. Ouch! However, if you're making this for someone a bit larger, you could try this in a double or even triple crochet stitch (although that will definitely make the blanket much longer, so you will do less repeats to get the same length)

And now, to start the actual pattern!

  1. Take 2 strands of your Main Color (MC). Make as many Foundation Stitches or Chains as it takes to make the blanket your desired width.
  2. Keep stitching with both strands of MC for 3 rows.
  3. At the end of the 3rd row, replace one of the strands of MC with a strand of A. Your 4th row will be stitched with 1 strand of MC and 1 strand of A.
  4. Stitch a 2nd row of MC and A held together. This is your 5th row in total.
  5. After your 5th row, replace the strand of MC with another strand of A. Your 6th row will be stitched with 2 strands of A.
  6. Stitch with 2 strands of A for 3 rows (your 6th-8th rows total).
  7. After your 8th row, replace 1 strand of A with a strand of MC.
  8. Stitch 2 rows of MC and A held together. This will give you 10 rows total.
  9. Replace the strand of A with another strand of MC. You will now have 2 strands of MC again.
  10. Stitch 3 more rows of 2 strands of MC held together. This will give you 13 rows total.
  11. Replace 1 strand of MC with a strand of B.
  12. Stitch 2 rows of MC and B held together. This will give you 15 rows total.
  13. Replace your strand of MC with another strand of B. You will now be stitching with 2 strands of B.
  14. Stitch 3 rows with 2 strands of B. This will give you 18 rows total.
  15. Replace a strand of B with a strand of MC.
  16. Stitch 2 rows with a strand of MC and a strand of B held together. This will give you 20 rows total.
  17. Replace the strand of B with another strand of MC. You will now have 2 strands of MC again.
  18. Stitch 3 rows with 2 strands of MC. This will give you 23 rows total.
  19. Replace a strand of MC with a strand of C.
  20. Stitch 2 rows with a strand of MC and a strand of C. This will give you 25 rows total.
  21. Replace the strand of MC with another strand of C. You'll now have 2 strands of C.
  22. Stitch 3 rows with 2 strands of C. This will give you 28 rows total.
  23. Replace a strand of C with a strand of MC.
  24. Stitch 2 rows with a strand of MC and a strand of C. This will give you 30 rows total.

Continue this pattern of 3 rows of the same color and 2 rows of mixed colors, with stripes of solid MC between each of your other colors until you've created a stripe of each color. If you want the blanket to be longer, start over again at color A and run through it again. When you've decided the blanket is long enough, end off on a stripe of 2 strands of MC.

If I remember to, I'll edit this to have pictures of what I'm talking about, and links to people explaining how to switch colors neatly or figure out what size hook you should use. While most yarn labels give a recommended hook size, that's assuming you're only stitching with 1 strand. For stitching with 2 strands you'll need to use a larger hook. Exactly which hook depends on which yarn you're using.

I highly recommend using a yarn that can be machine washed and dried. Hand washing a blanket is no small task, and neither is finding somewhere to hang it to dry! You may be tempted to use a hand-wash only yarn for a baby blanket since that will be much smaller and you could surely find a way to wash it. Imagine being a new parent who isn't getting much sleep and has to learn to change diapers and burp a child. Now imagine having to do that while also hand-scrubbing a blanket that's had milk spat up on it. Awful! Please do not torture the new parents, just give them something they can throw in the laundry right away before going back to teaching their bundle of joy how to be a person.

I'm tired so I'm done writing, if I remember to later I'll go edit this but otherwise you'll just have to deal with my typos. Bye!