Nursery to Toddler

Little Bamboo Baby Blanket Crib $64.95 Little Bamboo Baby Blanket (Crib)

CLOSEOUT!!! Ritzy Baby Blanket In Camoflague $49.99 CLOSEOUT!!! Ritzy Baby Blanket In Camoflague

CLOSEOUT!!! Booyah Baby Large Blanket In Baby Bloom $49.99 CLOSEOUT!!! Booyah Baby Large Blanket In Baby Bloom

Organic Baby Crib Blanket $39 Pamper Baby Pamper baby with elegance with warmth with softness Pamper baby with this luxurious blanket This beautiful crochet blanket features an attractive fringe and is made of the softest cotton organic that gentle enough for the most sensitive baby skin

Hearts Baby Blanket $48 Sweet and Soft Wrap your baby in the softest sweetest blanket Our Hearts Baby Blanket features a deliciously soft weave in a pale pink color Embroidered with dainty hearts this blanket is sure to become babys fast favorite Machine washable and sized for multi-purpose use the blanket is an all around winner

Snuggly Soft Baby Blanket $33 Snuggly Warm Keep your baby snuggly warm with this adorable pinstripe baby blanket This blanket will offer your baby both comfort and a great sense of security Each blanket comes with BABY embroidered in one of the three beautiful soft color choices Dont hesitate to make this irresistibly soft and cushy Baby Blanket yours as its destined to become your little ones favorite blankie

Construction Baby Blanket $48 Super Soft Choose our Construction Baby Blanket for a super cuddly and super soft blanket Embroidered with adorable smiling construction vehicles the blanket is a sure winner Machine washable and designed in a multi-purpose size mom will love the blanket too

Fairy Baby Blanket $48 Whimsical Beauty Our Fairy Baby Blanket is truly a dream come true The softest cotton yarn creates a blanket that is naturally cozy and warm Beautiful embroidery on each blanket depicts a dancing wand bearing fairy wearing a royal crown Each blanket is sized appropriately for multi-purpose use Sure to become baby favorite blanket

CoCalo Baby Textured Ivory Sage Stripe Blanket $29.99 CoCalo Baby Textured Ivory Sage Stripe Blanket

CoCalo Baby Textured Ivory Pink Stripe Blanket $29.99 CoCalo Baby Textured Ivory Pink Stripe Blanket

baby blanket templates

how to make a quilt easy instructions by poshblond

Knitting Tools of the Trade

  Knitting in its simplest form is often described as the looping of a string around two sticks.  When faced with multi-color patterning, intricate stitches or detailed graphs, this seemingly easy craft becomes a more complex activity that can benefit from an innovative tool or two.  Right from the start when the ideas for a new knitting project abound, there are aids to guide you in choices of yarn and color. Color wheels and color selectors, using proven principles of color theory, can steer you through establishing a pleasing color combination of two or many colors. Even though you may pick the perfect geranium pink to match that perfect leaf green, you still must find commercially available yarns of compatible weights in those very colors.  Many yarn retailers offer, at a reasonable cost, sample cards of available yarns in their full color range. Much like selecting paint chips at the hardware store, you are able to see at a glance what colors are available in a particular yarn and how they interact with other colors of that yarn type.

The screwdrivers and wrenches of knitting, the needles, though basic in shape, appear in a variety of materials. Wood and plastic offer comfort to tired hands, while metal needles promise speed.  A luxury class of needles fashioned from ebony or rosewood are advertised as hewn from the remains of prized woods used in the manufacture of musical instruments.  These needles should make your stitches sing. There is also the “heritage“ needle collection of which mine is labelled, due to many being borrowed from my mother’s knitting basket and never returned. A “classic” collection will likely contain a hodgepodge of needles gathered over the years as in mine, which range from a chipped orange metal No. 4′s to green plastic No. 8′s. It’s an odd grouping of materials and colors but favorites are easily recognizable when a certain knitting job comes to mind.

Now any good craft project whether made from wood or wool is only worth its weight when measurements are accurate and consistent. To knitters, the correct gauge must be achieved or every measurement throughout the project will become skewed. With numerous devices available to help accurately measure those all-important numbers of stitches and rows, there is absolutely no excuse for having the wrong gauge. A square gauge frame will force you to line up your knitting with the stitches at right angles to the rows, leaving you to count the numbers between the borders of the frame. Transparent stitch templates will tell you nothing but the truth as you try to match the drawing of the desired stitch gauge to the stitches of your knitted sample. A good tape measure, plastic or cloth, retractable or not, is essential to measure those lengths and widths once you start knitting. 

To see those stitches clearly, use a magnifier lamp clamped to your favorite chair or stood behind the sofa. Try a pair of magnifying flip-up lenses to increase your staying power when working with intricate stitches and dark colors. Don’t forget to prop up that book or pattern on a bookstand to keep your charts and graphs front and center. A line magnifier placed over the chart on a magnetic board will eliminate a lot of twisting and turning in your seat as you lean to squint at those lines. Once you have found your place there are gadgets to keep it.  Stitch markers and row counters mark the spot and giant safety pins put stitches on hold.  

A collection of tools needs a toolbox. Needles should be organized in needle cases, one for the straights and another for circulars, small boxes or bags for the bits and pieces such as stitch markers and measuring devices, and a great big bag or basket to keep it all handy and neat.

About the Author

Maddy Cranley is a professional knitwear designer, who has created exclusive designs for knitting and craft magazines, authored and published three books on the subject of creating felt garments and projects from handknitting, and produces an ever-expanding line of maddy laine handknitting patterns. For additional information, see http://www.maddycraft.com