It’s like literally knitting a hug.
Design an Easy Knit Blanket
Just pick a pattern to stitch and a yarn you’d like to use, make a gauge swatch, and use that to determine how many stitches you need to make a blanket the size you want. But what size do you want? Different countries have different standards for the size of mattresses. Blankets designed to go on beds tend to be significantly bigger than the bed they are going on, so there’s room for tucking and for a little bit of blanket to hang over the sides of the bed. In America, the “standard” sizes for blankets are as follows:
Crib: 45 by 60 inchesTwin: 66 by 90 inchesDouble: 80 by 90 inchesQueen: 90 by 90 to 100 inchesKing: 108 by 90 to 100 inches
Of course, the size of your blanket will vary based on the depth of the mattress, how much coverage you want, whether you want it to hang to the floor or comfortably cover the pillows, and so on. If you’re not American or are planning a gift for someone overseas, you can alter these measurements slightly to correspond with the slightly different measurements of beds in other countries. And even if your measurements aren’t perfect, odds are whoever you’re giving the blanket to will be so thrilled they won’t even care if it doesn’t fit their bed perfectly. Just call it an afghan or a throw, and it’s still a lovely gift, whatever its size.
Standard Mattress Sizes
This chart gives the sizes in inches and meters for the four main types of mattresses sold in most of the Western world. Another size you might want to know is the size of cribs, which can vary in size but usually have a mattress around 28 by 52 inches.
Yarn Requirements
Of course, once you know the size you want to knit and the gauge you’re getting in the stitch pattern you want to use, you’ll need to know how much yarn to buy. There are some rough yardage estimates for knitting baby blankets. Of course, if you are working from a knitting pattern it will tell you how much yarn you need, or you can look for patterns of a similar size to the one you are planning to estimate how much yarn you will need for your project.
