Im fixin to knit this wonderful jungle blanket I found in a Gwen Steege book. It has all these great animals on it and is very colorful. Im wondering about the underside of the blanket. I’m a new knitter and what I’m wondering is if there is anything I can do to make the back side as pretty as the front. I’m worried when I change the colors it will get messy and look bad. I figured out how to “carry” the yarn on the underside and that works great for hats but not to sure it will work for this blanket.
Any little secrets to keep it looking nice?
I thought that if all else fails I might could sew a nice piece of fabric to the back to cover everything, but this would be a last resort.
Do you have a link to the pattern? That helps us a lot when you ask questions.
W/o the pattern I can’t be sure, but it sounds like you need to be doing intarsia not fair isle. Fair isle carries the yarns and you usually do it in the round as in the hat. Intarsia is for big blocks of color and usually done flat. Both tutorials are under the video tab/advanced techniques. You can also find info here if you scroll down to multicolor knitting.
http://www.community.knitpicks.com/notes
Now the back… you can knit a back piece and sew it on or what might be faster and easier (and less thick and bulky) is to add a backing/lining to it. I don’t know how really since I haven’t done it so I’m sure someone can help with that when the time comes.
That Intarsia thing is fabulous! Thank you. Good information. I’ve now got some direction. Much appreciated!
I’ve been holding off on doing a knitted patchwork quilt, myself, for the same reason. I need to look at the pattern a little more closely, because I think there is a little stranding (fair isle), which won’t look nice on the other side. I don’t really want to knit a back, because, for one thing, it already takes a fair bit of yarn, which we all know, isn’t cheap, and also because I really didn’t want it to take twice as long. I wonder what a fabric back would look like? I don’t sew, either, but I know people who do.
When my children started cranking out the grandbabies, each set of parents got ONE cross-stitched blanket! A lovely cream colored woven blanket, with cross-stitching all around the borders, and sometimes in the field of the blanket, too.
You wanna see a mess? 
Even the best of crosstitchers can’t afford to have someone turn their work OVER!
I always ‘lined’ the back side of the blankets with a nice washable cream satin. Cut it about an inch larger than the blanket. “Hem it” by turning it under and pressing it. Then pin it to the blanket, and then take small stitches all around the perimeter of the blanket. Sometimes I also ‘tacked’ threads or ribbons through the thicknesses, too, but not always.
They turned out heavenly!
I’d use a knitted fabric like cotton jersey (t-shirt material, essentially) to back a knitted blanket. It will preserve the soft, flexible feeling of the knitting. The edges of knitted fabric don’t ravel, either, sew it’s easy to sew in place.