Q&A for How to Knit Blankets

First create a gauge so you know what size needles to use and how much yarn it will take to make the size you want. Then you can use any ply yarn, or even multiple yarns together to create your blanket. Gauge lets you know how many stitches per inch you can get based on yarn weight, needle size and your style of knitting. Some knit tight, some people knit loose, which why it's an important thing to know when you're trying to make something a specific finished size, whether it's a sweater or a cot blanket.

Use a crochet hook or your fingers to pull the loop through the horizontal strings one at a time.

For making a large blanket, use circular needles. It's about the only way to make sure you don't lose stitches when making something with a lot of them. You can use a 36" to 40" circular needle for making shawls or large blankets. They can have more than 500 stitches on them before you're finished. Use a 60" for making circular shawls, circular tablecloths and large blankets.

It does matter because the size of the needles and yarn controls how large and thick the blanket will be. If you're doing squares, it might not be an issue, but for a plain or striped blanket, you'll have to make a gauge swatch and then do the math to see how many stitches you'll need to cast on.

This is impossible. However, you have two options here. You can either start over, or do a striped blanket using the same color so it looks like one stripe rather than several (because the stripes are all the same color).

It depends on the yarn that's used. When you buy a yarn, there will be a piece of paper around it or on some part of it that will tell you whether it can be put in the washing machine, what the material is, what the length is, etc. This will help you determine the best method for washing it.

That’s what gauging is for. It all depends on the size needle, the yarn weight and whether you’re a tight knitter or loose knitter. Create swatch by knitting a small square with your desired yarn and needle, say 10 - 20 stitches and a number of rows to equal the same width in height. Then measure how many stitches per inch you have, and how many rows per inch. This lets you more accurately size any project you need to, especially wearables.

Yes, that is a really nice weight for blankets. If you are using a pattern, you might want to use the weight that they have used unless you are able to resize it based on your swatch/gauge.

Only you can determine how big you want the blanket to be, and the number of stitches will depend entirely upon the yarn weight and needle size. Do a swatch first to figure out how many stitches you need to get the size you want.

It depends on the size of your blanket! Try starting out with 3 to 4 balls of yarn and going from there.