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Everything that you ever wanted to know
(but were afraid to ask)
about the 6-Day Kid Blanket Straight Start
Did you know that you can now start your 6-Day Kid Blanket with a straight edge? Well, you can! Here is the blog post with my instructions for how to do it.
Many of the patterns updates and variations come at the request of crocheters making my patterns. One of those updates, or maybe I should call it an add-on, was a pattern to “square off” the top and bottom of the 6-Day Kid Blanket (a chevron blanket), in other words to fill in the “valleys” on the pattern to have a straight edge on the top and bottom.
Why would anyone ever want to do that? I thought. Seems totally unnecessary! But I kept getting asked the question again and again, and so one day I figured it out and published a pattern for it.
It was easy enough to square off the top of the blanket, but the bottom was an after-the-fact add on to the chain edge. It works fine, but I thought, if I want a straight edge on my blanket, and I KNOW I want a straight edge on my blanket, I should be able to START that way.
The “afterthought” square-off of the bottom edge is still a fine option, but the straight start is a really nice touch.
The formula for figuring chains for the regular chevron start for the 6-Day Kid Blanket is 17+3. Multiply 17 by the number of points you would like, and add three at the end. One is for turning and two are to account for the difference between the ends of the rows and the valleys not being the same.
The formula for the straight start is 13+4. Multiply 13 by the number of points you would like and add four at the end.
“But wait,” you say, “Those numbers don’t work! How do I get from 13 stitches per point, to 17?”
The answer is geometry. It requires more stitches to form an angle (chevron) than it does to make a straight line. After we chain our straight edge and work the first few rows, we will begin increasing stitches to create the points of the chevrons.
The graph on this page should help clarify this visually. I won’t include the entire graph, because graphs are stolen from my page and that damages my business. If you would like a graph of the straight start and squared off edge, please purchase the premium version of the 6-Day Viral Kid Blanket. The entire graph is part of that pattern. Please respect my copyright and do not share my graphs.
When starting your first (or any!) 6-Day Kid Blanket, you should begin with a swatch. You can make a regular 37 chain swatch per the pattern on THIS PAGE, or you can start with 30 and practice the straight start stitches. Either way, your swatch will be the same width. Use my Resize Video to figure out how many points you need for the size blanket you would like to make. Multiply the number of points by 13 and add 4. When you complete the straight start rows, you should be in the same situation as you would be if you had done the regular start, and you should have the number of points that you calculated. Move on then to 6DKB Row 2.
Patterns that use the straight start technique are
6-Day Ridgy Didge Baby Blanket
6-Day Shrug, Shrug Wrap, and Shrug with Hoodie
It turns out that I’m actually kind of a fan of this technique now. I never thought I would want to fill in my chevrons, but I do admire a nice clean top and bottom edge. It also makes it easier to put a fancy border on a traditional 6-Day Kid Blanket.
I hope that helps you figure out your straight start edge! Be sure to post photos of your projects in the 6-Day Kid Blanket Group on Facebook, and tag @bettymcknit in your social media posts so that I can see your beautiful creations.
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