The woodland theme is a perenial favourite for nurseries, and this blanket fits right in! The Hedgehog and Hoglets blanket features a cute little hedgehog family, with two baby hedgehogs (hoglets) following their mum.

This blanket is knitted in one piece from the bottom up, with a moss stitch border knitted as the rest of the blanket is worked, allowing for minimal finishing. The hedgehogs are knitted into the blanket using the intarsia technique; the facial features can either be knitted in, or added at the end using duplicate stitch.

The pattern is clear and easy-to-follow, and the intarsia portions of the blanket are provided as both charts and written instructions, making this pattern suitable even for those that don’t like working from charts.

The sample is knitted in King Cole Fashion Aran, a hard-wearing, machine washable wool/acrylic blend, and the brown used for the hedgehogs’ prickles is a tweed yarn, making the prickles extra ‘prickly’, but any aran weight yarn can be used, and the background colour can be changed to match the colourway of the nursery.

This pattern was first published in Issue 65 of Knit Now magazine.

Size
One size: 96.5 x 67 cm (38 x 26 ½ in)

Tension
18 sts and 25 rows = 10 cm (4 in) in stocking stitch on 5 mm (US 8) needle, or size needed to obtain correct tension.

Tools
5 mm (US 8) circular needle at least 80 cm (32 in) in length
Stitch markers × 8
Tapestry needle
Bobbins for holding the different yarn colours during colourwork
Chart row marker

Yarn requirements
Aran weight yarn (ideally a plied acrylic, wool or wool/acrylic blend) in each of the following colours:

• MC (Beige): 660 m/720 yds
• CC1 (Brown): 20 m/25 yds
• CC2 (Tweed): 115 m/125 yds
• CC3 (Black): 5 m/5 yds