New pattern: Granny's Button Jar

I thought I'd start the new year off with a bang, and have three new patterns to show you over the next few days. First we have my Granny's Button Jar blanket, which I previewed towards the end of last year.

I knitted the sample blanket for a friend's new baby who made her arrival at the end of September, but this blanket is one that I have wanted to knit for ages. The blanket is inspired by the collection of buttons at my Mum's house, which includes buttons from her mother. I loved playing with those buttons when I was little - arranging them into patterns, threading them on to string and just admiring them. One of the highlights of Mum knitting a garment for me was being allowed to choose the buttons for it.

The blanket is knitted in one piece with the buttons being incorporated using intarsia. I added the buttonholes at the end using duplicate stitch, but they could easily be knitted in as you go. The blanket has a moss stitch border that is knitted as you go.

Granny's Button Jar has huge potential for playing with colour: the blanket as written features seven colours of button, carefully arranged so no colour is adjacent to itself, whether horizontally, vertically or diagonally (this was a feat, and required me to arrange and rearrange bobbins of colours many times!). But you could make the blanket with as many or few colours as you wish, making it great for using up leftovers from other projects, though I would recommend using the same fibres throughout to prevent distortion when the blanket is washed.

The sample blanket was knitted in Red Heart Soft Baby Steps, which is a lovely soft acrylic yarn, but since I knitted the sample Love Knitting have reduced the number of colours available, making the yarn a little tricky to get hold of. The good news is that the blanket can be knitted in any plied acrylic, wool or acrylic/wool blend aran-weight yarn. I would recommend Paintbox Simply Aran (100% acrylic), which comes in an amazing range of colours, and is very good value for money. If you fancy something a little more luxurious, MillaMia Naturally Soft Aran (100% merino wool) is wonderfully soft, lovely to knit with and wears really well.

The pattern for the blanket is available now via my Ravelry and Love Knitting stores. If you buy the pattern from my Ravelry store before 11.59 pm GMT on Tuesday 10th January, it's available at the special introductory price of £2.50 (just add the oattern to your car and the reduction will apply automatically); after this time it will cost £3.60.

As always, I would love to see your finished project, so go ahead and set up a project page on Ravelry or Love Knitting when you cast on. For both sites, you have to set up a free account to post a project.

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