Quick and Easy Crochet Baby Blanket: free crochet pattern

Are you looking to make a beautiful crochet baby blanket in a hurry? This article has got you covered! We are going to look at my favourite pattern for a dead simple, but drop dead gorgeous baby blanket.

This design is ideal for over the legs in a pram or moses basket, or over a swaddle under supervision. You can also use it as a play mat, putting it onto the carpet or flooring for them to look at their activity centre or enjoy some tummy time!

Why make a quick and easy baby blanket?

There are a lot of reasons you might want to make a baby blanket in a hurry. You could be expecting your new arrival to turn up soon, or have a time sensitive gift to make. For example for a baby shower or pre-birth visit to your long-distance friend.

Babies also need a lot of blankets.

If you have decided to make them all yourself then it’s a wonderful way to channel your maternal instincts. But you need quantity as well as more fiddly and intricate designs.

Just because something was easy to make, doesn’t mean that it is not going to beautiful and very special. Especially when you have such a lovely repeated stitch, in a complimentary hue of colours.

The key to this crochet baby blanket may well be the yarns that were used, with variations on colour themes and shading.

Is this Crochet Baby Blanket really quick and simple?

This blanket took me around six hours to complete, and that is including the time it took to work out the admittedly simple pattern and write it down. If you are new to crochet it will probably take a little longer.

If you don’t have small children or demanding pets, it will fly along in no time at all.

Only two technqiues of stitching are required, the chain and the treble crochet. With a few colour changes thrown into the mix. For those of you new to crochet, we will have a quick look at the techniques required before we begin. For experienced crocheters, simply skip to the full pattern below.

How to Crochet a Chain

Here is my video tutorial, follow along to find out how to crochet a simple chain:

You can then use this chain to put your treble crochets into, to form the beginning of your crochet baby blanket.

How to Make a Treble Crochet

A treble crochet (US) is the natural progression from the double and single crochets.

Before inserting your hook into the desired loop, wrap the yarn twice around it.

Yarn over your hook twice, then hook through your loops. Yarn over and pull back through. There are now four loops on your hook.

Yarn over and pull through the first two loops. There should now be three loops on the hook.

Yarn over and pull through the next two loops. There should now be two loops on the hook.

Yarn over and pull through the final two loops. You have now made a treble crochet!

Quick and Easy Baby Blanket Equipment

Here is the equipment you will need to make your quick and easy baby blanket.

• 4 x 50g balls of yarn.  I used Sirdar Snuggle Crofter Baby DK, in two different shading variants
• A 6mm crochet hook
• Scissors
• Yarn needle

(The yarn needle isn’t essential, but will give you a hand with sewing in your loose ends at colours changes, start and finish!)

When you have everything ready, let’s begin!

Quick and Easy Baby Blanket Pattern

• Row 1 – Make a chain (ch) of 140 + 3 stitches
• Row 2 – Treble crochet (tr) into the 4th stitch (st). tr into each subsquent st. Ch 3 at the end of the row.

Before we continue – if you haven’t made a blanket or scarf that builds up even rows before, remember that you must stitch into each loop of the next row. Including the last one, which will be more fiddly than the rest as it is made up of the top of your previous chain. Don’t miss these loops out, or your blanket will gradually decrease in size as you carry out.

• Row 3 – tr into the 4th st. tr into each subsequent st. (Make sure you put a tr into the last st, which is the top st of the previous row’s chain. If you omit this, the rows will gradually reduce as you go along). Ch 3 to begin the next row
• Row 4 to 8 – Repeat from * until row 8 end, where you change colours.
• Row 9 – *tr into the 4th st. tr into each subsequent st. Ch 3.
• Row 10 to 15 – Repeat from Repeat from * until row 15 end, where you change back to your original colour.
• Row 16 – *tr into the 4th st. tr into each subsequent st. Ch 3.
• Row 17 to 22 – Repeat from Repeat from * until row 22 end, where you change back to your second colour.
• Row 23 – *tr into the 4th st. tr into each subsequent st. Ch 3.
• Row 24 to 28 – Repeat from Repeat from * until row 28 end. Tie off with a long loose end, and sew back into your blanket.

It’s that simple! Once you are finished you can if you like make a border around the edge, or just leave it as the simple, functional, pretty blanket that it is.

Crochet Baby Blanket Safety

I swaddled my baby from the day I brought her home. When babies are very small they can’t manipulate their blankets or move around when they are swaddled.

This meant that from the first day home I was able to put crochet blankets and knitted blankets over her when the weather was cold.

It was cold for the first few days of her life, as you can see in this picture she is well tucked in with a cellular blanket and a knitted one over the top.

Swaddling is only recommended with light layers.

Don’t be tempted to simply swaddle with your crochet blanket as any heavy material could restric the baby’s chest expansion.

Safety recommendations for babies often advise against using any blankets other than cellular ones for the first year of a baby’s life, due to the risk of breathing being interupted by the fabric crumpling and overheating causing harm to their poorly temperature regulating bodies.

If your baby is not swaddled, or is old enough to go under the blankets but not adept enough to pull them off their face again, people frequently not advise putting a homemade blanket over them.

If they are swaddled and definitely unable to move the blanket, then tucking one over their swaddle to keep them warm should be okay as long as you make sure you are not overheating them.

But you need to use your best judgement, and talk to your health visitor before making any decision in respect of your own baby’s personal situation.

Crochet blankets are gorgeous, but keeping babies safe is more important than anything else in the world.

Supervised Uses for Crochet Baby Blankets

For supervised use, you can lay crochet blankets over your baby gently to keep them snug and happy in the pram or moses basket in the day time if the temperature is low and you are watching.  You can also use it as a play mat, putting it onto the carpet or flooring for them to look at their activity centre or enjoy some tummy time!

This blanket is made up of long loose stitches. The weave should leave enough gap from your babies fingers to curl through, but without getting easily tangled.

The blanket should still be breathable, and it’s important to remember that any hand made item is not safety tested. A good test is to fold the blanket several times and hold it firmly over your nose and mouth. If you can easily take breaths through the material then your baby should be able to as well.

Put a baby safe cellular blanket over your face and do the same test if you are unsure. Cellular blankets as sold by MotherCare and similar outlets are safety tested. They are not as pretty or personal, but let’s face it, new parents are too tired to care most of the time anyway!

However long you decide to wait to use the blankets, your child will want to use them long after the small and squishy stage is a distant memory.

My now two year old daughter went made for this finished blanket, and my wonderful five year old niece still loves the first one I made for her several years ago.