Rowan Paint Daubs Blanket Knitting Pattern

Rowan Paint Daubs Blanket by Kaffe Fassett

What is Being Made

The Rowan Paint Daubs Blanket is a knitted throw blanket designed by renowned colorwork artist Kaffe Fassett. This is a substantial blanket project created using the Rowan Felted Tweed yarn collection, featuring a sophisticated intarsia pattern worked across the main body with decorative moss stitch borders framing all edges.

Techniques Used

This blanket employs several advanced knitting techniques to achieve its finished design:

• Intarsia: The primary colorwork method used throughout the blanket's main body. Intarsia allows for large, complex color patterns to be knitted seamlessly by using separate yarn bobbins for each color section, creating a flat fabric without the bulk that traditional stranded colorwork would produce.
• Moss Stitch: A textured stitch pattern used for the decorative borders on all four edges of the blanket. Moss stitch is created by alternating knit and purl stitches in a checkerboard formation, providing visual interest and structural definition to the blanket's perimeter.
• Stockinette Stitch: The base stitch used throughout the patterned central section, providing a smooth canvas for the intarsia colorwork to display clearly.
• Seamless Construction: The blanket is worked flat on straight needles from bottom to top in one continuous piece, eliminating the need for seaming.
• Bottom-Up Construction: The blanket is worked from the cast-on edge upward to the final cast-off, allowing the knitter to try on and adjust length as desired during the knitting process.

Stitches Used

The blanket utilizes a limited but effective stitch vocabulary:

• Moss Stitch (K1, P1 ribbing variation): Formed by alternating knit and purl stitches on every row, creating a dense, textured fabric used for the 5-stitch borders on all sides and the 5-row edgings at top and bottom.
• Stockinette Stitch: Knit on right-side rows and purl on wrong-side rows, this smooth stitch forms the main body of the blanket and serves as the foundation for the intarsia pattern display.

Materials and Yarn

The blanket is constructed using Rowan Felted Tweed yarn, a wool-based fiber known for its soft handle and subtle heathered colorways. The pattern calls for a total of 12 x 50-gram balls of yarn A (Fjord 218) as the primary color, with single 50-gram balls each of eleven additional coordinating shades: Candy Floss 221, Astor 217, French Mustard 216, Iris 201, Lime 213, Sulfur 220, Frozen 185, Vaseline Green 204, Mineral 181, Heliotrope 219, Ciel 215, and Electric Green 203. This carefully curated palette of warm and cool tones creates the sophisticated colorwork effect.

Needles and Gauge

The blanket is worked using one pair of 4mm (US 6) straight needles (also referred to as size 8 in UK sizing). The pattern specifies a tension of 22 stitches and 30 rows to 10 centimeters measured over the patterned stockinette stitch using the 4mm needles. Achieving correct gauge is essential for this project, as it directly affects the final dimensions of the blanket.

Pattern Structure and Complexity

The blanket begins with a cast-on of 319 stitches, providing substantial width. After establishing the moss stitch edging and setting the stitch pattern with borders, the main pattern is worked from a chart that repeats across the width. The 100-stitch pattern repeat is worked three times across each row, creating a balanced, symmetrical design. The chart contains 104 rows of patterned instructions, which are repeated four complete times in succession, followed by a partial repeat of rows 1 through 31. This structured approach creates a cohesive, multi-repeat design that showcases the intarsia technique across the blanket's full expanse. The project concludes with a final 5-row moss stitch border worked in yarn A before casting off, mirroring the opening edge treatment.