Wonder Woman Blankie

When one of my coworkers announced her pregnancy last summer, I was really hoping it would be a girl. She, her husband, and their daughter are all a bit obsessed with superheros, so I was itching for an excuse to knit up a modified Wonder Woman Wrap Blankie for the occasion. Shortly thereafter, she found out it was indeed another little girl, so I got to work! I've heard from several other crafters who've wanted to modify my patterns for other purposes, so I thought I'd share my blanket mods with you, just in case you're looking to do something similar. I used the knitted WWWrap as my starting point, but similar tweaks could also be made to the crochet version, if you're so inclined.

First off, I knew it needed to be machine washable since baby blankets are susceptible to all sorts of stains. I found just what I needed at my local Joann store in the form of Premier Yarns Deborah Norville Everyday Soft Worsted Solids. They have a wide array of colors, but I was drawn to their Really Red, Lemon, and Royal Blue. I grabbed two skeins each of the red and yellow and one skein of blue for the border. Then I went home and set about swatching!

With my worsted weight yarn and size 8 (5mm) needles, I cast on using the Wee size instructions in the pattern. Since I didn't want my blanket to grow in width quite as quickly as the original wrap does, I chose to only work the kfb increase at the beginning and end of every other row, rather than every row. I also slipped the first stitch of every row for a nice clean selvage edge - makes it easier to pick up for the border later! When I reached my desired blanket width, about halfway through the side stripes, I stopped doing the kfb increases altogether so the blanket width would stay constant after that. After finishing the Upper Triangles, I simply continued to knit even in garter stitch until I was almost out of red yarn, leaving enough for just one more row. Next, I made second piece exactly the first and grafted the two halves together in the center with kitchener stitch to form a hexagonal-ish blanket.

Finally, I grabbed my size H (5mm) crochet hook and worked a border all around consisting of four rounds of half double crochet stitches. Along the cast-on edges, I worked one hdc in each cast-on stitch; along the straight vertical sides, I worked one hdc in each selvage stitch (so 1 hdc per 2 garter rows); and along the angled increases edges, I did 3 hdc for every 2 selvage stitches (so 3 hdc per 4 garter rows). As I worked my border rounds, I did a double increase at each corner as well. I probably could've stood to pick up fewer stitches and/or do fewer increases since the border got slightly ruffly toward the end, but I think it still turned out fine. If you'd rather, you could certainly do a knitted border instead, but the thought of binding off that many stitches was not a pleasant one, so I opted for crochet.

I hope that helps give you some ideas of how to adapt this pattern to other uses. Enjoy!