Afternoon Tea Blanket KAL Part 1

Welcome to the very first instalment of our wonderful Afternoon Tea Blanket Knit Along (KAL). The pattern used is a beautiful Woman’s Weekly knitting pattern, with an exclusive colourway by us here at The Knitting Network. We’re so happy to have you all!

For this KAL you will need Stylecraft Special DK yarn (100% acrylic). Get your handy colour pack for only £15.99.

Each week we will be here to help guide you through each one of the 5 pieces, starting off with the Polka-dot Motif. Using pretty dark pink and contrasting pale yellow shades, the design and colourway creates a delicious strawberry-like pattern.

This pattern introduces colourwork and the technique of stranding. Colourwork simply refers to a pattern that has a design that uses two or more colours and stranded knitting is the most common technique used. Stranded knitting requires you to carry along the strand of yarn not in use across the back of the work. If you are new to the technique of stranding, we've made a helpful step-by-step guide to make things easy. As a teaser, we’ll be introducing more colourwork next week.

For this week’s motif you will need 1 x ball of Pomegranate (1083) and 1 x ball of Lemon (1020), as well as 1 pair of 3¾mm (No. 9) knitting needles and a knitter’s needle for sewing up.

Download the PDF for Part 1 here>>

This week's Polka-dot Motif is a nice easy introduction to using more than one colour of yarn when knitting. To create the dotty effect, you simply need to change to a new strand of yellow yarn when knitting the row of yellow dots and then cutting the yarn at the end of the row. You will then end up with a length of yellow yarn at the beginning and end of each row of yellow dots, as illustrated in the image below of the back of the piece. Once you have finished knitting you can sew in all the ends using a knitter’s needle.

Just as importantly, this is the front of the finished piece! Delicious!

Please don't block your work until the KAL has finished. We will go through the blocking instructions in the final part.

We have a lovely group on our Facebook page called ‘Knit Along with The Knitting Network’, which you can join to share your progress and help each other along with the KAL. You can also use hashtag #afternoonteablanketkal to share photos of your blanket, this will help us find your photos easily and at the end of each week we will be doing a weekly round-up of everyone’s progress!