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

[lannamichaels]

Not a parent, but a giver to parents: I've been using knitpicks's acrylic brava yarn (in bulky) for baby stuff and it's great, it holds up well to washings and is comfy. I'm very hesitant about "washable" wool since I had made a test blanket out of that and the yarn came completely apart in the wash, but the acrylic stuff is really great. Smooshy and soft and great for babies. Just throw it in the wash with all the other stuff, it's great.

I like your chevron pattern, I did this zig zag blanket a couple years ago and it came out really nice. I've tried the ten stitch a few times but never got very far in it, it seems a little tricky to make sure the proportions are right.

Whichever you go with, I learned from my last blanket, do something that can be made smaller if you need it to be! I did a mitered square of my own design and it was seriously giant (when I went to give it to the parents, I had to take a larger suitcase just to fit the blanket in it), and I could't just stop it earlier to make it smaller. A nice repeating pattern is much more flexible.