The Simple Ripple Blanket

My grandmother is the queen of these blankets.  Each grandchild gets a full-size blanket in their college colors before they start their freshman year.  I've still got my red and white one in my bedroom here in Illinois.

I wanted to try out a new pattern for the baby of a friend of mine, and it seemed like the perfect one to try since it means so much to me. I found some similar patterns but they were annoyingly complicated.  I decided to make up my own pattern where there's only one pattern to remember that's the same for every line.  It's also really easy to adapt to the size you want to make.

Materials: 

I used Loops and Threads Impeccable Big! yarn in Chocolate and Aran.

This is a great pattern for using a handful of different colors, or using up scraps from other projects. I like using a thicker, sturdy yarn so that it keeps it's shape a little better. 

I think I used a size 8/H/5mm hook.

My stripes were 18 rows of brown with 2 rows of white.

The Pattern:

The Set-up: 

Cast on 25 stitches plus 13 for each additional ripple.

For a small baby blanket I cast on 116 stitches.  

If you're not sure how big to make it cast on 116 and then keep adding 13 until you think it looks that right size for you- keeping in mind it'll be maybe 2/3 that width once you do the ripples.

The First Row:

·      Single crochet into 2^nd stitch from hook. 

·      Sc into the next five stitches.

·      *Sc three times into the next stitch.

·      Sc in the next five stitches.

·      Skipping the next two chain stitches, sc into each of the following five stitches.

Repeat from * until your last 5 stitches. Sc in each, ch 1.

The Rest:

·      Crochet in back loop only for the entire blanket.

·      Sc in first stitch, skip next stitch, and sc in the following 4 stitches.

·      *3 sc in next stitch (at the peak).

·      Sc in next 5 stitches, skip two stitches (at the bottom of the V), Sc the following 5 stitches.

Repeat from * until you have 7 stitches left.

·      3 sc in next stitch

·      Sc in next 4 stitches, single crochet decrease in the last two stitches, ch 1, turn.

Continue this pattern for the remainder of the blanket, and switch colors at the end of rows as often as you want.

To do a single crochet decrease:

·      insert hook into 1^st stitch, yarn over and pull through stitch

·      insert hook into 2^nd stitch, yarn over and pull through stitch

·      yarn over and pull through all 3 stitches on your hook

You can also see the single crochet decrease done in this youtube video.  

a close-up on the stitches

 the full blanket

the bottom edge

Pattern is also available as a PDF on Ravelry.