Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Bavarian Crochet Baby Blanket

I discovered Jenny King's Learn to Do Bavarian Crochet while I was browsing through crochet books on Amazon and couldn't resist giving it a try. The book is relatively inexpensive, which is a good thing, because all you're really getting here is one pattern. Then you get explanations of how to shape that pattern as a square, triangle, or rectangle and numerous pictures showing what it would look like made up into various items. The book does contain full patterns for shawls and blankets, but after the initial starting shape is made the further instructions really aren't necessary since they are exactly the same for all projects.

The pattern itself is easy to follow and I really like the textured look that you get in the finished piece. The lighting in our living room has kind of skewed the colours a bit, but I made this Bavarian crochet baby blanket using Bernat's Softee Baby in mint, white and soft lilac. You do a lot of 'crocheting around the post' in this piece and it helps to create a thicker baby blanket than you would normally get with the light weight Softee.

For my first experiment I was actually planning on an adult sized afghan using Vanna's Choice, but I was working with a size J hook and I found it was just bunching up too much because it was so thick. It didn't look good. I've now picked up an N hook so I may give that experiment another try sometime.


Looking around online I've also seen the Bavarian crochet described as the "yarn eater" pattern and I would say that's a fairly accurate description. My baby blanket is approximately a 5 X 5 foot square and I believe it took about 3 balls of each colour to complete. On the plus side, it's a wonderful pattern if you want to use up a lot of leftover yarn. It's also wonderfully repetitive. You work in rounds from the centre, similar to a granny square, and just repeat the same two rounds over and over again. After the first couple of colours the process becomes pretty intuitive, making it a great project to work on while I was watching TV or focussed on other things. From the beginning I also worked in the loose yarn ends as I went so that I wouldn't have the tedious job of hiding them all at the end, one of my least favourite parts of multi-colour projects.


Below you can see what the back of the Bavarian Crochet looks like. I thought it was interesting that it comes out very similar to the some of the daisy chain patterns I've seen in other crochet stitch books.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting some nice pictures of the front and back of this! I've been working on a yarn eater blanket myself and was a little worried because the back looked so different. It looks like yours though, so huzzah!

Anonymous said...

This is really inspiring me to try Bavarian Crochet!!! What a gorgeous blanket and fascinating stitch!

Zoe said...

Hi,,,
I've been searching for this pattern and all I can find is pictures of it.
I'd greatly appreciate finding someone that is willing to share the pattern with me. If that person is you, you can email me at zoes.place@yahoo.ca

Thank You
Zoe

amber said...

Hi Zoe, thanks for writing. The pattern is still available for purchase from Amazon.ca at a relatively low price through the link in my post above. Check it out. If you prefer not to buy online, you may want to talk to a local bookstore in your area and see if they can special order a copy for you. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

thanks. I have just seen a beautiful afghan done in this stitch. I really appreciate the back side picture. I am going to have to give it a try, sometime, when i have all these other projects finished.... :)

Anonymous said...

I am a beginner and have managed to follow the pattern but can't seem to hide my stitches what am I doing wrong? Or that should I be doing please help!

Sue said...

I love your blog. It is very informative. I found you blanket in images after a google search. I have just "discovered" this stitch and I was doing some research. It is great to see the front and back of the blanket. Thanks.

Unknown said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd4QPW64Xl8