Spring River Baby Blanket will keep babies comfortable, become a toddler’s favorite blankie, and warm the laps of adults and seniors on cool Spring and Summer evenings. Your Spring River blanket will have soft cables and a textured fabric that’s much easier to knit than it appears. If you know how to cast on/bind off, knit and purl, and can follow simple instructions for a 4-stitch cable, you can easily knit this pattern.

My sample blanket was knit on US 6 (4 mm) knitting needles with 2 cakes of Lion brand Mandala yarn (a 100% acrylic fiber, each cake is 150 grams) and the final size was about 40” x 30”. The self-striping color changes are dyed into the yarn. Mandala comes in a lovely variety of colors, but of course you can use any yarn you wish.

I’ve included a bonus pattern for a matching newborn hat worked on US 4 (3.5 mm) circular needles. This hat is worked (mostly) in the round using a similar stitch pattern (just a bit smaller :-). 300 grams of Mandala (2 cakes) will be enough for a hat and blanket set, or one larger blanket than the one shown in the photos.