DIY Chunky Knit Blanket

Yarn: Yarn Bee Showstopper can be found Here and Here

Giant, fluffy, chunky, oversized knit blankets are all over instagram and I’m absolutely loving it. These blankets are so gorgeous and look great draped over your couch, at the end of your bed and especially in any curated flat lay or cozy snapshot. I’ve been longing for one of these cozy blankets for so long but here’s the problem, they aren’t cheap. These blankets range from a few hundred dollars to over a thousand, often for one that’s pretty small in size. That being said, more and more diy “kits” are becoming available but these aren’t too cheap either. Having my mind set on getting one of these blankets one way or another, I thought I’d just find merino wool myself online or in a fabric store and save money while still getting the same result. But yet again, even this option was very pricey and I now understood why these blankets sell for so much, the merino wool that’s used to make them goes for about $100+ for a few skeins, which is only enough to make a very small blanket.

Then I thought, why don’t I try to find a non-wool yarn that looks like merino wool. I searched everywhere and came up with nothing that looked remotely like merino wool, everything was far to thin. I finally come across an acrylic yarn that looked exactly like merino wool and was a lot less expensive! This yarn isn’t sold in bulk so getting enough was difficult! The yarn is sold at hobby lobby (here) both in store and online and I also managed to find it sold on ebay (here)  if you prefer to buy it from there. The yarn is super soft and you would never know it’s not real merino wool! The blankets cost $40 total for a 50″ by 30″ size, $9.99 per skein (and thats not even counting if you use coupons). This is less than half the cost of the cheapest merino wool I could find and far cheaper than buying the blankets already made.

Once I had all my yarn, I went to work teaching myself how to hand knit, making myself a blanket and then going on to make a few more as Christmas gifts! I absolutely love my blanket and so do those I gifted them to! Once I quickly got the hang of hand knitting, I was able to make a blanket start to finish in about two hours. I’ve included clips with each step of hand knitting the blankets below!

Note: I used 4 skeins of yarn per blanket to achieve a 50″ by 30″ size. The yarn is called “Yarn Bee Showstopper” and I used the colors ivory, pewter and cedar.

Step 1: Measure the length you want, your bottom chain will be the width. Create a loop and pull another loop through it with your finger to create a knot, essentially creating a slipknot (I left about 5″ of yarn hanging off the knot as a tassel, and later added tassels to the other ends). From here you’re going to continue reaching through each loop and pulling another loop through. Once you reach your desired length you are done creating the bottom border of the blanket

Step 2: Pull the last loop of your bottom border chain upwards, this is the first loop of the second row. Now pull the yarn through the top “hole” or gap of the next stitch on the bottom chain (look at the first loop you pulled upwards and see how it appears to be coming out of the top hole of the stitch rather than the bottom hole of the stitch). This is what you want to do to create each new loop of the second row. Continue this until you reach the end of the row.

Step 3: Once you get to the end of the row be sure to pull the yarn through the loop you just finished to create the first loop of the next row. Continue pulling the yarn through each loop of the row below it until you reach the end and start the next row. Continue this until you are ready to create the top border.

Step 4: Once you reach the height you desire, you can begin tying off the top border of your blanket. It’s important to note that the border requires about double its length in yarn. To start the top border grab the last two loops of your previous row (I put them front end of the first loop to back end of the second loop) and pull the yarn through to create a loop. Now that loop is your new “first” loop and you’ll grab the second loop from previous row and pull the yarn through to create another loop. Continue this until you reach the last two loops.

Step 5: To tie off the blanket, grab the last two loops as you have been and pull the yarn all the way through, creating a knot. I kept about 5″ of the yarn hanging off as a tassel and added tassels to the other 2 corners.

Note: When I created this blanket (after having a major fail on my first try) it looked way longer and skinnier than I wanted. I didn’t understand because I had carefully measured the width to ensure that this time, it was perfect. What I realized is because this yarn is so thick and easily stretched, it actually stretched out longer as I was knitting it! All I had to do to fix it was lay it out flat, scrunch it in shorter and pull it up taller and it was just the measurements I wanted! If you notice your blanket’s measurements look off once its finished, try this tip and it should bring it back to the size you want!