How to Make a Crochet Baby Blanket

There are so many baby blanket patterns out there, but you can also learn to make a crochet baby blanket pretty easily to use whatever yarn and stitch pattern you like and to make it whatever size you want.

These instructions mostly cover making a square or rectangle baby blanket in once piece using the same yarn and stitch pattern throughout, with notes on variations.

What Yarns are Good for Baby Blankets?

Any yarn weight can be used to crochet a baby blanket, though the mid-range (from size 2-4) are most commonly used. While size 1 and 2 yarns are sometimes referred to as “baby yarn,” you don’t have to use it when making things for babies.

In general I like yarn weight 3 or 4 (DK/worsted) for baby blankets because it makes them a little thicker and heavier and they’re faster to make. In fact, I wrote a whole book of baby things using worsted and heavier weight yarns (though it is for knitters, not crochet).

For baby blankets I prefer yarn that is machine washable, because most new parents are not going to take the time to hand wash things. So that means acrylic, cotton and blends, and super wash wool. If you can touch the yarn before you buy, make sure that it’s soft to the inside of your arm or neck, and don’t choose yarns that are scratchy.

How Much Yarn Do You Need?

To make a crochet baby blanket there are a lot of variables to consider in terms of how much yarn you will need, including

• the size of the blanket you want to make (see below)
• the weight of yarn you are using (you’ll need more yardage of smaller weight yarns)
• the stitch pattern you choose

The Lion Brand website has a good chart on yardage estimation, which suggests you’d need 1,250 to 1,500 yards of a fine/size 2 yarn to crochet a baby blanket, or 1,000 to 1,125 of a weight 3/DK weight yarn. That’s a good place to start but all the above factors can still come into play so you may need more or less yarn to crochet a baby blanket than that.

What Size Should My Crochet Baby Blanket Be?

One reason it’s hard to say how much yarn you’ll use when you make a crochet baby blanket is that you can make a blanket pretty much any size you like.

This is one reason I love gifting baby blankets, because you can use any yarn and stitch pattern you want, and basically just start crocheting on some reasonable sounding number of stitches that works for your stitch pattern. Work until it’s square or rectangular, add a border if you want and you’re done.

If you like to plan a little more than that, there are lots of suggestions for how big a baby blanket should be. I like the list from Marly Bird, which suggests sizes for everything from a lovey (10 by 10 inches, or 25 cm square) to a crib sized blanket (45 by 60 inches/114 by 152 cm).

Anything in that range works, even if you don’t hit one of those “standard” measurements exactly. I generally like to aim for something like 36 inches/91.5 cm square, but since I’m not one for doing a gauge swatch for baby blankets (another reason I love them) the actual size I end up with varies widely.

Choosing a Stitch Pattern

You can use pretty much any stitch pattern you like to make a crochet baby blanket, but I prefer ones that make more of a solid fabric that little fingers and toes can’t get stuck in. No treble crochet or lacy patterns for babies over here!

Another consideration is how much yarn you have (if you’re using yarn you already own) or how much yarn the stitch in question will use. Some crochet stitches naturally use more yarn than others, either because they are tall, like trebles, or because you’re working a lot of stitches into the same space.

Big textured stitches like waffle stitch, bullions, popcorn and crocodile stitch tend to use a lot of yarn, but stitches that make a solid fabric can use more than you’d expect, too, because they’re covering more ground. So single crochet and moss stitch take a lot of yarn, for example, because the stitches themselves are so small.

If being able to use the amount of yarn you have is an issue, follow the instructions in “if you want to swatch” to determine with relative accuracy how much yarn you’ll need for the size and stitch pattern of crochet baby blanket you want to make.

If You Want to Swatch

I know it’s not like a designer to tell you that you don’t have to swatch, and it really would be better if you did if you care about hitting a particular size or want to know more scientifically how much yarn you need.

So if you want to swatch for your crochet baby blanket, please do so, using the yarn and hook you want to use, with the stitch pattern you intend to use. Make your swatch around 6 inches/15.25 cm square, and wash it the way you’ll wash the finished blanket.

Then you can measure how many stitches and rows per 4 inches/10 cm you are getting in your particular yarn and stitch (and you’ll know that you like this combination before committing to a whole blanket) and from there determine how many chains you’ll need for your blanket.

For example, here is a swatch in lemon peel stitch using a size 3/light/DK yarn (the sadly discontinued Mary Maxim Sugar Baby Stripes, but their Lullaby is a great choice, too) and a size G/6/4mm crochet hook. The full swatch is about 6.75 inches/17 cm square and used 24 stitches.

That comes out to about 14 stitches and 13 rows per 4 inches/10 cm, or 3.5 stitches and 3.25 rows per inch/2.5 cm. If I wanted to make my 36 inch/91.5 cm square blanket using this stitch I’d need 126 stitches and 108 rows to complete it.

Of course these numbers may need adjusting slightly depending on the pattern repeat (both rows and stitches) needed for your planned design, but that gives you a place to start.

If you want to do blocks instead of making a crochet baby blanket all in one piece, swatching is helpful to determine how many stitches you need to make a square of the size you want.

Swatch Math

Knowing your gauge also makes it possible to determine how much yarn you need for the full blanket. Count the number of stitches and rows in your swatch and measure the full swatch. Mine is 24 stitches by 22 rows and about 6.75 inches/17cm square. It also weighs 17 grams.

The yarn I used weighs 100 grams per 295 yards (270 meters), and I know it would take about 25 units of the same size as my swatch to make a blanket close to 36 inches/91.5 cm square. (It’s actually 5.25 units wide and 4.9 units tall, but 5×5 is pretty close.) So doing a bit of math, I know that I’ll need 442 grams of yarn, or about 1,304 yards to make a blanket of my desired size.

If you need help with the math, what I did was 126 divided by 14 to determine I needed 5.25 times the number of stitches I started with. I also did 108 divided by 13 for the number of row (4.9 times more). 5 times 5 is 25. Then check, is this number reasonable? Multiply the weight of your swatch by the number of units needed (here 17 times 26), which gave me 442 grams. The yarn is 2.95 yards per gram (295 divided by 100) so I need around 1,304 yards (442 times 2.95).

And since the yarn I picked (if it were sill available) comes in 295 yard skeins, I’d need about 4.5 to finish my blanket, which gives me some wiggle room to adjust the size or add a border.

Make a Crochet Baby Blanket Without a Swatch

If you don’t want to crochet a swatch before you get started on your baby blanket, you can thoughtfully wing it. Look at the ball band of your chosen yarn and see what it suggests for gauge in terms of stitches per 4 inches/10 cm and what size hook it calls for.

This hypothetical swatch uses single crochet, so your personal gauge and the gauge of the stitch pattern you plan to use may vary wildly from that. Indeed, if you’re using a very different stitch pattern, either because it’s using taller stitches or more dense/textured stitches, it may not be close at all. So you can add more stitches to your project as you like to account for that.

But if you’re making something in a stitch pattern that’s similar to single crochet, you can use this measure somewhat confidently. So if your ball band says you should be getting 4 stitches per inch/10 cm and you want a 30 inch/76.2 cm square blanket, you’d need around 120 stitches.

If you start there, crochet a couple of inches and find your blanket is a lot bigger or a lot smaller than you intended, you can measure your real gauge, rip out and adjust accordingly. Or just go with it, as I usually do.

Your Baby Blanket Crochet Pattern

Because most crochet baby blankets are square or rectangular, there’s not a lot of pattern to it. Once you have an idea of how many stitches you need based on swatching or guessing, adjusted for the stitch multiple needed for your particular stitch pattern, you can chain the number of stitches you need plus any extras for the turning chain.

This assumes you’ll continue in the same stitch pattern throughout the baby blanket, but if you want to change stitches you can do that, too, adjusting your stitch count as needed to work with the new multiple (though ideally in this case you’d swatch both/all the stitch patterns so you can account for any changes in width).

You can also change colors as you go. Start a new color at the beginning or a right/front side row for best results.

Keep crocheting until your baby blanket is your desired size, you run out of yarn or the baby is born, whichever comes first.

Adding a Border

I don’t always add a border to baby blankets, but they can be nice on crochet baby blankets, especially if your edges aren’t totally straight (guilty!).

The easiest way to add a border to a finished crochet blanket is to work in rounds around the edges. Working two or three stitches into the corners will allow the border to lie flat.

You can use the same stitch as you used on your blanket or add contrast by working a different stitch pattern. Here you might be able to get away with a little more open stitching if you want, or keep it more solid. Or keep it simple and just use single crochet border, or do a round of singles, a round of doubles and a round of singles or something similar.

This will of course use more yarn, so if you made careful yarn calculations at the beginning you’ll need more yarn for the border. A contrasting color can also be fun if you’ve run out of the yarn you used for the body.

Do you have any tips for how to make a crochet baby blanket? I’d love to hear them or what your go-to stitch pattern is!