On My Needles: The Tonal Blanket

The Tonal Blanket by Purl Soho is a simple and beautiful knitting pattern. The baby blanket has a clean, modern look, but is cozy and warm. You can easily (and endlessly) customize this pattern by substituting different colorways. It’s also an excellent introduction slip stitch knitting, a great starting point for anyone who is interested in learning mosaic knitting.

Choosing the Pattern

When my husband discovered that his dear friend’s wife was expecting their first child together, he asked me to make them a baby blanket. I reviewed several patterns, but couldn’t quite find what I was looking for.

Finally I stumbled upon the Tonal Blanket on Ravelry, which led me to the pattern by Purl Soho. I was drawn to it because the pattern is super easy to memorize; the repeat is only 4 rows! Because I’d be knitting it for a while, I needed something I could keep up with. Even better, I found that this stitch pattern produces fabric that is thick and warm.

Since it works with any colorways, all I had to do next was find the yarn!

Choosing the Yarn

This blanket was always going to be knit with DK or worsted weight yarn (my favorites), but I wasn’t quite sure which yarn I should use. When I visited Red Fox Yarns in Vienna, Virginia, I found colorways that spoke to me in Plymouth Yarn’s Encore DK.

I paired blue, green, mustard, and baby yellow with cream for the Tonal Blanket. These exact colorways are called teal, green, 4739, yellow, and cream. (I believe that 4739 has been discontinued or is an older name for colorway.)

Modifications

I sized up my needles to US size 6 (4.00mm) to accommodate the DK-weight yarn. It worked out perfectly, even though matching gauge isn’t essential for blankies. To accommodate the change in size, I used a cast-on of 153 stitches.

The original Tonal Blanket is worked in 6 colors: the main color plus 5 contrasting colors. I only chose 5 colors: a main color plus 4 contrasting colors. As a result, I also had to make adjustments to how many rows I worked. After some fiddling, I found that 24 4-row repeats (or 96 rows) per section was just about perfect for a blanket divided into four sections.

Knit Your Own

The Tonal Blanket by Purl Soho is available for free.

Note that this pattern is simple, easy to memorize, and purl-less, but it is a time-intensive pattern.