The color scheme in combination with the harlequin stitch pattern is glorious choice for this crochet baby blanket. It’s both a great color choice for boys blanket. But – as it’s so sophisticated-looking – it would make a stunning home décor treasure that would befit a beach cottage home decorating scheme. In which case, you’d probably want to make the full-sized afghan.
Harlequin Stitch for Crochet Baby Blanket
The yarn in this picture is Bendigo Woollen Mills ‘Luxury’ 10ply: 6x 200g balls to make a thick, heavy blanket (approx 1.2kg).
Final baby blanket measurements: 120cm x 90cm.
Someone just asked me about the colors from the Bendigo Woollen range. They are ghost, koala, lake and navy blue.
How to Crochet the Harlequin Stitch
This is the pattern Adele used for her crochet baby blanket. This sure looks complicated – but isn’t. At all. Let me break it down for you.
Free Blanket Crochet Pattern
The actual crochet pattern for this blanket is ‘Greenway’ harlequin stitch afghan.
It’s a free crochet pattern that uses US crochet terminology.
It’s for a full-sized afghan blanket, but of course, you can modify the size to suit your needs.
Yarn Needed
15 skeins (100 g) of Berroco Comfort yarn will give you a 45 x 60-inch blanket.
You’ll need much less, as a baby blanket is typically only 36 inch. Pro-rate your yarn needs accordingly. Convert the length x width: a baby blanket is 13/16 x 6/10 of the full afghan. This means that you will need 6/10 of the yarn allotted for the full afghan. Let me put that in a table for you:
| Blanket size | Full Afghan | Baby blanket |
Aunt Martha Green | 4 skeins | 3 |
Barley | 3 skeins | 2 |
Sprig | 3 skeins | 2 |
Teal | 3 skeins | 2 |
Spruce | 2 skeins | 2 |
| All Berroco’s Yarn, from various suppliers, so you can always find the colors you need. |
The Berocco yarn is made with 50% superfine nylon and 50% superfine acrylic. This yarn will lead to a very fine blanket.
Meanwhile, for the afghan in blues (top picture) Adele used a pure woollen 10-ply luxury yarn from Bendigo woollen mills in Australia. This is thicker than the original pattern specified. This wool maker ships internationally, but there’s always a shipping cost with that. Which might be worth it.
However, If you are looking for a US-based supplier of the wonderful yarn specified in the pattern (and look for options of free shipping) you can find it here: Berroco Comfort Yarn, from our Affiliate suppliers
The Harlequin Crochet Stitch Explained
The Harlequin Stitch is also called the Catherine Wheel.
How does it work? In layman’s language/ in simple crochet terms: you first chain a row and then you have a set-up row. After your initial set-up row, the pattern repeats 4 rows in different colors.
It’s essentially made up of two shells that are facing each other, plus a few (skipped) stitches to make the pattern. Each shell is typically made up of an uneven number of stitches.
In this case, the Berroco pattern states (3dc, ch, 3dc) instead of 7 dc. Essentially this will make your blanket lighter and cheaper, as you’ll use less yarn than if you were to make the 7dc. I suppose after making a thousand wheels, that 1 stitch less adds up.
Free Video Tutorial Harlequin Stich Crochet Pattern
(How to make the Catherine Wheel crochet pattern)
Here is a free video tutorial to learn how to do this stitch and make this blanket. The Harlequin stitch demo and tutorial starts at 2.05 min. And you don’t need to watch the whole 19 minutes of this video. After a few minutes you will already see how the Harlequin stitch is actually forming. At that time you can switch over to your Harlequin blanket crochet pattern, and start working on your own great project! Have fun !!
PART 1
PART 2
Enjoy!
TIP: Crochet Yourself a Dishcloth with the Harlequin Stitch, First
If this stitch is completely new to you, I’d suggest you make a say 12 x 12 “ dishcloth which will have 4 benefits:
- 1. You’ll get to understand how the pattern works.
- 2. You’ll get to measure your gauge.
- 3. You’ll get to decide on a small project to see if you really want to make a large blanket of 45 x 60 inches using this stitch pattern.
- 4. You’ll have a new dishcloth with a beautiful pattern. Finish your square off with a round of single crochet and add a hanging loop.
Gorgeous Crochet Baby Blanket & Afghan Pattern Book
The afghan pattern can be found in this Kindle book: Comfort Knitting & Crochet: Afghans: More Than 50 Beautiful, Affordable Designs Featuring Berroco’s Comfort Yarn
More
Crochet Patterns & Crochet Stitches (almost all tutorials are free!)
Till soon,
Rose
Note: Three Beans in a Pod* blog no longer exists.
