The Zen Ombre Baby Blanket

Aka the PJ Blanket

2020 has been the year of the baby blankets. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law had a baby girl, and I wanted to make something special for the little one. Why do I call it PJ blanket? Because PJs mom loves potatoes, so we called her Potato Jr, or PJ for short!

There are several ideas and goals I had for the blanket. I knew I wanted to:

• make a continuous, one-piece blanket, as opposed to the granny square style of the Blinky Blanket
• only use Zen colors to really feature the cohesiveness of the Zen bundle
• have an ombre vibe
• try out a unique border. Scallops is my go-to. I wanted to try something different.

And so the PJ blanket begins. This project is perfect for beginners because you only need to know 3 crochet sticthes, and the main body of the blanket is made with only 1 stitch: the double crochet.

The blanket measures 31 inches by 39 inches without the border.
The completed blanket measures 33 inches by 41 inches with the pom pom border

First, let’s start with what you will need!

You Will Need:

• A size 5.0 mm crochet hook
• 300 g (6 balls) each of Simply White mindfulknits 100% cotton yarn
• 300 g (6 balls) each of Afterglow mindfulknits 100% cotton yarn
• 300 g (6 balls) each of Fresh Bamboo mindfulknits 100% cotton yarn
• 300 g (6 balls) each of Soothing Sea mindfulknits 100% cotton yarn
• A couple good audiobooks or a great podcast

You can purchase 6 Zen Yarn Bundles to have the yarn needed for this project. We’d like to make a special offer: purchase 6 bundles on Etsy and use the code PJBLANKET at checkout for 25% off your total order!

The Pattern

Notes: This blanket is made by holding two strands of yarn together, to have a thicker yarn effect and to enable the ombre look by combining two colors at the same time. Here is a useful video to see how to crochet with multiple yarn strands:

In multiple points throughout this blanket, you will have to join in a new yarn ball. Here is my favorite methodology for joining in new yarn in Knitting or crochet:

It is simple and you don’t have too much annoying weaving in to do. This method ensures that your project wont unravel, and will last forever so you or the person you gift it to can use it and pass it down.

Body of Blanket

Afterglow

With 2 strands of Afterglow held together, chain 84 and turn.
Row 1: Dc in third chain from the hook, dc to end, ch 2 and turn.
Row 2-5: Repeat Row 2

Afterglow + Fresh Bamboo

Row 6: Keep 1 strand of Afterglow and join in 1 strand of Fresh Bamboo (see notes above for join tutorial), so that you are crocheting with one strand of each color.
Row 7-10: Dc in third chain from the hook, dc to end, ch 2 and turn.

Now, repeat the above pattern (Rows 6-10) with the following color combinations for 5 rows each:

Fresh Bamboo

Fresh Bamboo + Soothing Sea

Soothing Sea

Soothing Sea + Simply White

Simply White

Simply White + Soothing Sea

Soothing Sea

Soothing Sea + Fresh Bamboo

Fresh Bamboo

Fresh Bamboo + Afterglow

Afterglow

Border of Blanket

For the border of the blanket, we used the pattern from Daisy Farm Crafts and used Simply White yarn. Here is their tutorial video.

You can also check out their written border instructions here on their blog.

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And voila! Your blanket is complete! I hope you enjoyed making it as much as I did. It is truly one of those, turn on your audiobook/podcast/Netflix show and relax kind of projects. Please tag @mindfulknitsgram on Instagram with you finished work! Or even your work in progress. Or even just the yarn. We’ll love it, I am sure.