Make this easy knitting pattern – Mock Cable Baby Blanket

I love the look of cable knits. They make such gorgeous hats and sweaters. I think cable knitting scares a lot of people, but it’s one of those things you just have to sit down and…do…and you realize after you try it once or twice that the concept is really pretty simple.

It is not, however, terribly fast. You’ve gotta keep track of that extra needle, and no matter how many times I follow the same pattern, I always have to go back and look up what all the abbreviations stand for and when to put my cable needle in the front and when to move it to the back.

I find that I love to cable knit smaller pieces like hats and sweaters – and even this gorgeous skirt I made my daughter – but I lose the patience to knit something as big as a blanket. It takes me foreverrrrr, and I usually knit two or three other things in-between when I start and when I finally finish it.

So, in this case, I’m a fan of cheating. Short-cutting. Faking it. Pulling a fast one. We knitters can be a sneaky bunch when we want.

All this to say – this blanket looks cable knit BUT IT IS NOT! Hahaha! It’s an easy knitting pattern, knit on two plain ol’ needles (or one set of circular needles. That’s how I always do it.) The main pattern is just four rows, and it’s pretty easy to remember once you get started. So it’s the perfect project to take along to kids’ soccer games or to knit while you’re watching TV or to click along on while you’re listening to an audiobook or a podcast.

Find the Mock Cable Baby Blanket Pattern here

It’s also worth noting that you knit the pattern the long way this time, so when you measure how big your blanket is getting, you’re actually measuring the width rather than the length. You could knit it longer if you’d like, but it will be larger than crib sized in that case.

You can find the Mock Cable Baby Blanket Pattern right here!

Like I said, it’s an easy knitting pattern to remember so it goes pretty quickly once you get started. One tip I have for blanket patterns with long repeats like this one has – sometimes it’s helpful to put a stitch marker at the beginning of each repeat. It’s easier to keep track of how many repeats you’ve done when you can just count your stitch markers. It’s also nice to mark the start of your border stitches when the blanket has a larger border like this one. It’s not essential, but I find it helps me better follow my pattern.

You do need to know a few knitting terms – psso (pass slipped stitch over), which this YouTube video explains well:

You also need to know how to yarn over, which is exactly as it sounds – just wrap your yarn once over your needle without knitting. And sl1 just means to slip your stitch from your left needle to your right without knitting or purling it. Those are the only extra things you need to know!

As for yarn, I got Caron Simply Soft at Michael’s, but Craftsy has some gorgeous ones (some of them for cheap!) if you want to browse.

If you make this, let me know how it works out for you! I love seeing photos of people’s completed projects and blankets and hearing who they’re being knitted for. I think one of these days I’m going to do a post where I just share everyone’s blanket pictures and stories and we can all admire each other’s work!

In case you missed it, you can find the Mock Cable Baby Blanket pattern here.