I’ve been knitting mostly scarves for about a year now, so I’m very beginner at this stage. I thought I’d attempt a baby blanket, since it’s the same idea but longer. Well, it ended being as long as my couch… and not very wide. My husband thinks I can separate this monstrosity somehow but because I knit long wise and cast on 400 stitches, I’m worried I can’t. It would be awesome if I could separate this into 2 blankets.
Aside from folding the blanket in half and hand sewing it together, is there anything I can do? I really would hate to have wasted the time on this thing.
Wow! That IS a long baby blanket! :teehee: Very pretty combination of yarn and stitch pattern, though.
You could use a process that is known as ‘steeking’ to secure the stitches on two adjacent columns of stitches (I’d pick the two center knit columns) and cut between them. After that was done you could knit on an edging, or if you wanted it to match the other exactly, you could knit a long garter strip and sew it on.
There are many tutorials on steeking out there, (including one here that I made a long time ago that isn’t really what you need) so I won’t try to explain what the many visuals show better, but it should be very straightforward since you have a nice, straight line of easily visible stitches to work with.
The main concern would be to make sure your stitches are very secure since it (they) will get a lot of wash and wear.
Hi and welcome!
Wow, that is a lot of beautifu knitting. One thing you could do is this. In your case, you’ll want to grab the stitches on both sides of the cut. If there’s a plain row in you pattern (maybe a straight knit or purl row), that would be a better place to cut. Grab the stitches on the upper half (nearer the bind off side) and bind off. On the other half, nearer the cast on end, grab the stitches or you could even pull the yarn end out one stitch at a time as you put the loops onto the needle (tinking) and then bind off.
I’ve made sweaters that turned out way too big and have often thought about just cutting out the largest part of the back and sewing some of that satin trim that some baby blankets have on them around the edges to make a baby blanket. I suppose that is an option for this project. get some satin trim, which is pretty wide and already folded for sewing onto a blanket, and sew it around all four sides of each half of this project, after you cut it in half of course. For a knit project like this, I would sew two times around, once at the inside edge of the satin trim, and then again about 1/4 inch in from the first stitching, making sure that the knit fabric is tucked all the way up to the fold of the satin trim.
“It looks like she technically needs to really cut vertically, though, no?”
Ah, I thought the blanket was knit for too long so that cutting across the short dimension would give you live sts. If it was knit too wide then yes, steeking will work
Thank you so much! I watched a few videos on steeking and it may work. I am worried because this is an acrylic yarn and most of the videos say that it unravels easily. I certainly have some homework to do. At least the baby isn’t due until August.
Steeking works so well on wool because the cut ends tend to felt themselves. You’d have to be sure to really secure the stitches with a small sewing machine stitch or really make sure you get all the stitches with the crochet method.
I’d been thinking that you could make another one like it, or take out the bind off and keep going and end up with a full-sized blanket and just make a regular sized baby blanket.
I bet you’ll be amazed at how quickly a regular baby blanket knits up after this one! :teehee:
I am knitting a baby blanket, using circular needles. This is the first thing beyond the 1 scarf I have made that I have done. When I cast on, I didn’t count, but it didn’t seem too long, but it is like 75 in long and only 21 or so deep! I watched a steeking video, but I am still scared to cut. How does it not unravel? Is there another option? I have 1 more thing of yarn in this color, but it is getting ridiculous! That will make 7! Help! :shrug: (Mine looks like the lady’s that was as long as her couch)
If you make a double line of machine or hand sewn stitches on either side of the cut line, the stitches won’t unravel. If you’re using wool, the yarn felts together a bit when it’s washed to strengthen the seam. You can then put a binding around the edges or crochet over the steek and around the edge to hide the steek and that’ll help keep the ends from unraveling too.
(Mine looks like the lady’s that was as long as her couch)