Crochet// How I made my sunburst baby blanket

Two of our best friends are about to have their first baby and Gavin and I are really excited about becoming a Funcle and Faunt (fake-uncle and fake-aunt)!  Even though I haven’t met the little champion yet, I know they are going to be an absolute dude/dudette. As a ‘welcome to the world’ gift for the new tiny person, I made this sparkly sunburst crochet baby blanket.

The wool

In a local shop I found some sparkly DK wool in white, pink and blue pastel colours. Like a magpie, I was sucked in by the shiny things and I bought the LOT. Aside from the glitter, I chose this wool because it’s acrylic, machine washable and I thought that would make it durable enough to withstand anything the baby throws at it!

I’ve not used sparkle wool before and if I’m honest, I probably won’t again. Yes, the blanket looks like it belongs to a magical unicorn. Yes, this little handcrafted baby quilt would feel at home in Disney’s Cinderella Castle. Alas, the sparkliness of the wool made it difficult to crochet with. Specifically, the shimmery threads are tighter than the normal threads and they make the wool look less smooth and a bit wiry once finished. 

The process

To make the blanket, I firstly consulted the internet, and all those who sail on her. (Weird thing to write. Very weird. Sorry).

As I mentioned in a previous post, I find it difficult to follow a pattern straight away, so I first enlisted the help of Sarah-Jayne from Bella Coco and her infinitely helpful YouTube tutorials. I crocheted along to the video above to make the first few squares. Then I decided I was ready to use a pattern. This blogpost by Nitty Bits was really helpful.

In total, I crocheted sixteen sunburst granny squares.

Once I’d made the squares I watched this video tutorial which showed me how to stitch them all together. There’s a number of different ways to attach granny squares, but this particular method is my favourite and uses a needle and thread. I personally think it looks the neatest.

This arduous task took a bit longer than expected, so I’d recommend allowing a extra time to do this!

I then weaved in all the loose strands of wool – again something that took longer than expected! Slugs on the Refrigerator has a great tutorial that shows how to do this.

I then crocheted a border around the outside using white and blue wool until I thought it was big enough. This is the finished result!

Have you ever made a baby blanket? Share a link in the comments section!

 

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