A children’s afghan built around teddy bear motifs – the kind of blanket that gets dragged around a house for years and eventually has to be repaired rather than replaced. Finished size is 45 x 64 inches, which is a proper single-bed throw rather than a small lap blanket.
Designed by Martha Brooks Stein. Worsted weight yarn throughout, using H and J hooks.
Why two hook sizes
The two hooks do different jobs. The smaller H hook gives a denser fabric for the bear motifs, keeping their outlines crisp and stopping them from distorting. The larger J hook produces a looser background that drapes properly rather than sitting stiff. Using one hook for both would give you either rigid bears in a good background or soft bears in a board-like blanket.
Check your gauge on both hooks before starting. At 45 by 64 inches, a small gauge difference compounds into several inches across the finished piece, and it changes how much yarn you need.
Yarn choice
Machine washable, without exception. This is a child’s blanket and it will be washed constantly, spilled on, and treated badly. A good acrylic or a superwash wool both work. Untreated wool will felt and the bears will pull out of shape the first time it goes through a warm cycle.
Choose a background colour with enough contrast against the bears that the motifs read clearly. Two mid-tones sitting close together in value will blur into each other however different the colours look on the ball.
Practical notes
Buy all your yarn at once in the same dye lots. On a blanket this size a dye lot change mid-project will show as a visible band, and it is not something you can work around later.
Weave in ends as you go. A motif blanket generates a great many of them, and facing several hundred at the end is how projects get abandoned within sight of the finish.
