A knitted blanket that looks like a patchwork quilt. If you like the appearance of handmade quilts but have no interest in sewing one, this gets you there with needles instead.
How the quilt effect works
Each block is knitted in two colours in garter stitch, shaped with simple increases and decreases. The shaping is what creates the illusion: the increase and decrease lines read as the diagonal seams of a pieced quilt block, and the two colours sit either side of them.
There is no colourwork to manage – no stranding, no intarsia bobbins. Each block uses one colour at a time. That makes this considerably more approachable than it looks, and it is a good introduction to shaped knitting for anyone who has only worked rectangles.
Garter stitch also lies flat, which means the blocks will not curl at the edges and the finished blanket needs no border to behave.
Planning your colours
Lay the blocks out before seaming and photograph the arrangement. Quilts get their impact from the placement of light and dark rather than from the individual colours, and an arrangement that looks good on the floor sometimes falls apart when you stand back. The photograph shows you what your eye is too close to see.
Aim for real contrast within each block. Two similar tones will blur and the diagonal lines that make the quilt effect will vanish.
Seaming
This is the part that decides whether the blanket looks made or homemade. Take the time to do it properly: mattress stitch, matching row for row, with the same yarn.
Seam in sections – blocks into strips, strips into the blanket – rather than adding one block at a time to a growing mass. It is far easier to keep straight.
Yarn
A smooth worsted in machine-washable fibre. Buy all colours at the start in matching dye lots; on a blanket made of many identical blocks, a dye lot shift shows immediately.
