Craft me Happy!: Questionable Blends Blanket - A Veined Mitred Square Blanket Knitting Pattern

This year I’m writing a blog series, exploring various ways of spinning commercially available, multi-coloured blended tops from World of Wool.

I’ll be using the word questionable to describe any blend that would cast doubt in the mind of even the most experienced spinner. A blend that would cause you to pause before ordering it and question how it might turn out.

Novice spinners are regularly attracted to the bold, multicoloured stripes of a vertically blended top. Yet, they are frequently left disappointed when their beautiful combed top turns to mud on the wheel.

As I progress through spinning each blend, I will knit the different yarns into a blanket to become the mother-of-all colour samplers. Hopefully, if all goes to plan, I’ll be able to share my completed mitred square blanket spun from 12 different multi-coloured blends by the end of the year.

Yarn Gauge

My blanket is knitted using hand-spun, sport-weight yarn (between a UK 4 ply and a double knit). I’ve used size 3.5mm needles for most of the yarns, but have gone down a size to achieve gauge for the non-stretchy bamboo yarns.

Each of my squares uses about 14 metres of yarn and they’re about 10cm x 10cm when they’re finished. Your mileage may vary depending on the yarn you use, just try to choose yarns of a similar gauge to each other.

(Affiliate link - In the image above, I'm using the Electric Eel Wheel Yarn Counter to measure how much yarn is required to knit one mitred square.)

Use the needle size appropriate to your yarn that will give you a dense, neat finish without being too tight.

Of course, it can be knitted with any leftover yarns that are the same weight as each other, but I think it looks particularly beautiful when you use variegated yarns.

I only used 1 type of yarn for each mitred square but you can get some interesting effects by changing yarn colour throughout the squares.

This is a great stash-busting project!

Unlike most mitred square blankets, it is not constructed in garter stitch so the squares are more of a kite-shape before they’re joined together. This ‘pointiness’ gives the squares a slightly 3 dimentional quality as they are joined to each other, which is very pleasing.

Abbreviations

sts: stitches

k: knit

p: purl

sl2tog, k1, p2sso : slip 2 stitches knit-wise, knit 1, and pass the 2 slipped stitches over the knitted stitch

Foundation Square

Cast on 41sts

This first, bottom left square is the only square begun by casting on all of the base stitches. The rest of the blanket is constructed by picking up either all or nearly half of the base stitches depending on where on the blanket it is falls. There is no sewing involved but I’ll be weaving in my ends every 20 squares or so to avoid having to weave in hundreds at the end.

Once the base 41 stitches have been cast on, and/or picked up, all of the mitred squares follow the same pattern instructions -

Veined Mitred Square Pattern

Row 1: (Wrong side) purl

Row 2: k19, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k19 (39sts)

Row 3: k19, p1, k19

Row 4: k18, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k18 (37sts)

Row 5: purl

Row 6: k17, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k17 (35sts)

Row 7: k17, p1, k17

Row 8: k16, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k16 (33sts)

Row 9: purl

Row 10: k15, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k15 (31sts)

Row 11: k15, p1, k15

Row 12: k14, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k14 (29sts)

Row 13: purl

Row 14: k13, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k13 (27sts)

Row 15: k13, p1, k13

Row 16: k12, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k12 (25sts)

Row 17: purl

Row 18: k11, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k11 (23sts)

Row 19: k11, p1, k11

Row 20: k10, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k10 (21sts)

Row 21: purl

Row 22: k9, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k9 (19sts)

Row 23: k9, p1, k9

Row 24: k8, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k8 (17sts)

Row 25: purl

Row 26: k7, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k7 (15sts)

Row 27: k7, p1, k7

Row 28: k6, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k6 (13sts)

Row 29: purl

Row 30: k5, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k5 (11sts)

Row 31: k5, p1, k5

Row 32: k4, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k4 (9sts)

Row 33: purl

Row 34: k3, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k3 (7sts)

Row 35: k3, p1, k3

Row 36: k2, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k2 (5sts)

Row 37: purl

Row 38: k1, sl2tog, k1, p2sso, k1 (3sts)

Cast off 3sts purlwise

Square 2 - Base Square

Cast on 21sts then pick up and knit 20sts from the right side of square 1 (2sts between each purl ridge).

Work the veined mitred square pattern as above.

Square 3 - Left Edge Square

Pick up and knit 20sts along the left edge of square 1. Turn and Cast on 21sts taking care to keep the stitches loose.

Work the veined mitred square pattern

Square 4 (Base Square)

Work the cast on instructions for square 2, but this time pick up stitches from the right edge of square 2. Continue with the veined mitred square pattern.

Square 5 (Main Body Square)

Pick up and knit 20 sts along the left edge of square 2, pick up 1 stitch from the point of square 1, and 20 sts along the right edge of square 3.

Continue with the veined mitred square pattern.

Square 6 (Left Edge Square)

Work the cast on instructions for square 3 but this time pick up stitches from the left side of square 3.

Continue with the veined mitred square pattern.

This completes all of the instructions for the main body of the Veined Mitred Square Blanket. From here you just follow the cast on instructions relevant to the position of the square in the blanket (see the illustration below) and then continue with the veined mitred square instructions.

I’ll be knitting mine corner-to-corner until the base is as wide as I want it to be. I will then stop adding base squares but keep working diagonally in the order shown on the chart below until the blanket is as long as I want it to be. I’ll then just keep adding Main Body squares diagonally until the blanket is complete.

As a guide, this is the order that a 4 x 4 blanket would be knitted in -

I will probably add some sort of garter stitch edging in a single colour to finish it off, with possibly a tassel trim, but I’m not quite decided on that yet.

I’ll try to update this post when I’ve completed my blanket. Thank you for stopping by, and happy knitting!