The centre of this baby blanket is worked first, and then the edging is knitted separately and sewn to the centre.

I wanted to make my new nephew a blanket that would resemble the sea. The indigo-dyed Shilasdair 4ply is the perfect colour, and the border edging makes me think of waves breaking on the beach.

This would be a great pattern for a confident new knitter. You’ve got plenty of mindless garter stitch to work on while you’re out and about with friends or at knit night, but there’s also a pretty lace border to knit when you’ve got a bit of time to concentrate. The stitch count on the border changes, but it’s quite straight-forward. Just check that you’ve got the right number of stitches at the end of each RS row. If you haven’t you will only need to unpick one row!