Baby Snowball Blanket: How many stitches?

[DioneTheDiabolist]

Hello knitters. This is my first post on this board.

I have bought some Baby Snowball yarn to knit a blanket for my (soon to be arriving) DN.

Do you know how many stitches I should be casting on to make a pram blanket?

I knitted a blanket in Snowball (not the baby version) and found that when I cast off it tightened up and seemed to sag in the middle.

So I undid it and started again. I found that it worked best to start with a very small number of stitches and increase so that the work looked like a triangle. I think I started with 2 stitches using the smooth part of the wool either side of a bobble. (If I recall correctly the smooth bit gives two stitches and then a bobble). I experimented a bit and think I increased only at the beginning of every row (I pinned a safety pin to one side to differentiate between the front and back).

Once I used half of the wool then I started to decrease at the beginning of every row. The finished blanket turned out roughly square.

Thanks Woolly. I am a knitting numpty, so the idea of increasing then decreasing stitches is probably beyond my abilities. I have cast on 40 stitches and am going to try knitting squares and sewing them together.

I have knit 5 rows so far (only 1 stitch between pompoms) and it's looking ok. But I won't know until I finish this square. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sorry to jump in, I am trying to do this too. woolly did you cast on with the snowball wool or different wool and attach it? And I only have one stitch between each bobble with the baby snowball, should I be trying to do two? And then if I increase at the beginning of each row would I need to do two stitches? Sorry I am a total beginner, hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread.

Ooh FTHC, I ripped out my original attempts and got frustrated with how tight it was casting on. I think I will try casting on with regular wool and then knitting it in. Thank you.

Increasing and decreasing is easier than you think, and I only started knitting as an adult about a year ago.

To increase, knit the stitch as usual, but before you lift it off of the left needle, put the right needle through the back of the stitch on the left needle and then lift off. You should have an extra stitch on the right needle. You're basically twisting the stitch to put extra yarn on the needle.

To decrease, instead of knitting the next stitch (stitch 1) on the left needle, slide the needle into the one after (stitch 2) and back up through the first so you're picking up two stitches on your right needle, then knit them as one. This is why the say k2tog on patterns - knit two together.

Hth, and let us know how you get on!