Baby blanket tutorial

Well, my dear ladies, you asked for it so here it is! Please let me know if you find anything unclear, ok?

These were the 2 colors I used, white and an almost lavender pink and a size 3 crochet hook (sorry, I don't know what this translates into your sizes). 

It's 100% cotton, Mississippi Tex by Katia--I don't know if you can find it where you are but I'm sure you can find a lovely cotton yarn that will produce the same results.

Off we go!

Make a chain as long as the width you want your blanket to be. The finished size of mine is about 50cm x 70cm, so I made a chain of 140 and made 64 clusters of 2 double stitches. 

Now what's that?! 

That means I turned around after I made the chain and stuck the hook in the 4th chain, to make a double stitch. 

Then one chain and a cluster: stick the hook in the next chain, pull the thread once, twice, and leave the other 2 loops in the hook. Stick the hook in the next chain, pull the thread up again, one, twice, and all 3 loops together at last. That means the 2 double stitches will be joined together at the top, forming a cluster of 2.

*Cluster of 2, chain, cluster of 2, chain**...repeat from * to ** for as long as you want it to be.

Still with me?

Good, then all you have to do is repeat this until the end of the chain. As I said above, I made 64 clusters. That means I had a few chains left at the end of the row, but that's ok, you can pull them apart later. 

Now that your first row is ready, it's time to join the other color. I used pink because it's for a baby girl, but it looks great in blue and I can imagine it is lovely in aqua too!

So here's what you do at the end of the row: just pull the ball of white through the last loop as if you wanted to bind of, but don't cut it. That way you won't have to tuck in a bunch of little tails when you're done :) 

Then attach the pink. Or the blue or acqua or whatever color you chose.  Just pull it through the beginning of the row, as you would with the previous color. And then you do a short stitch over each chain of the previous row and a chain over each cluster. 

Easy, isn't it? 

And at the end of the row. pull the thread through too, so that it doesn't come undone.

Next row: back to the clusters. 

Just pick up the white thread wherever it is (either left or right) and work it as it is. It doesn't matter if the pink row goes left to right or right to left. You just work the next row as you would if you didn't have a pink one in between. 

Make a cluster over a chain and a chain over a short stitch. Each cluster ends up on top of the one you made before, see?

So now... just keep working! Make it as long as you want--I made 51 rows of white with 50 rows of pink in between. 

It's easy and really nice to work on!

When you want to finish, you will work the other way, that is, instead of making clusters you'll be making simple double stitches. I tried it both ways and decided this way looked nicer.  

Sorry this only has 3 rows of white but I was running out of yarn and needed to show you the border!

So now you're ready for the border. That's really easy too! Just like you did for the pink row: one short stitch, one chain, repeat until the end of the row. 

That's very easy, right? The only tricky part is in the corner: you make a short stitch, a chain and another short stitch in the same hole to turn around. Then you make the side of the blanket. I made 2 short stitches separated by a chain per set of 2 rows (white and pink), that was the way it worked best for me. Just keep at it until you have made a full round. 

 "Jump" up to the next row. Just make a short stitch over a chain and a chain over a short stitch... and always a short stitch, chain and short stitch for a corner. 

 3 rows done, this is what it looks like. I made 4 on my baby blanket.

 Finally, the last row. It's just like the previous ones. 

But now you're going to do a little variation. *One short stitch, one chain, one short stitch. Then 3 chains, attach to the short stitch to form a picot**, that little loop you see, over the next short stitch. Then back to * and repeat to ** until you've done the entire row. 

Bind off... you're done! And as you can see, no "icky" nasty little loose ends to tuck in except for the last one... 

And it looks just as nice from the back side as it does from the right side.

I really hope I was clear enough--but if you have any questions, just let me know!

And let me know if you've started something with this pattern :) baby blankets are so nice to make! Have fun and have a great week :)

xxx

Oh, I almost forgot! The flower... is just a variation of a Japanese flower, with 8 petals :)