Need advice for deciding on my next project

[medrin]

My sister is going to have her first baby in August and I am planning to make something for it. I figure a baby blanket is a thing that would be useful? Also, unlike clothes the baby won't outgrow it in a week and a half... But I'm trying to decide on what KIND of blanket to make.

So now I'm asking you, especially those of you who have/have had babies. What kind of blanket did you find the most use of? Knitted or crocheted? Wool or cotton?

I figure since babies, it need to be washable/durable so then cotton is a good choice. For wool choices I'm looking at sock yarns. Since I don't want it to take forever to make and also not be super bulky I'm looking at using 3-4 mm needles.

The two ideas I keep coming back to is either to buy a large number of different single colour yarns and make something like this: Crocheed chevron blanket, probably in a cotton yarn (probably either this or this which my LYS has on stock so I could just go buy it today.

OR: To knit something inspired by ten stitch blanket but with two spirals with different colour-ways. The yarn I keep looking at for this pattern is this which is very shiny but necessitates ordering online.

Maybe I should do both? Will I have time to do both? I have no idea.

Comments

[liseuse]

As a knitter (I'm not a parent) I've always used acrylic/acrylic-blend (heavy on the acrylic) for baby blankets. There's some info on stuff I've knitted for babies [HERE]. Alongside blankets I do a good line in burp cloths - mostly using these patterns:
1. http://shirleyknits.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/free-pattern-3-burp-baby-cloth.html
2. http://shirleyknits.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/free-pattern-2-baby-cloth.html