Bo Peep Pure Botanical Garden Blanket KAL - Allotment in West Yorkshire Spinners - WYSKAL01A - Downloadable PDF

Bo Peep Pure Botanical Garden Blanket KAL – Allotment: Full Pattern Summary

Designed by Rosee Woodland and published by West Yorkshire Spinners, the Allotment Botanical Garden Colourwork Blanket KAL is a stunning knitted blanket project that forms part of the larger Bo Peep Pure Botanical Garden Blanket KAL series. This downloadable PDF pattern is rated intermediate in difficulty and is available completely free of charge, making it an accessible yet rewarding project for knitters who are ready to develop their colourwork skills.

What Is Being Made

This pattern produces a large, decorative knitted blanket with an allotment-inspired botanical garden theme. The finished blanket measures 85cm wide by 83cm tall after blocking, making it a generous lap or decorative throw size. The construction is panel-based, with each individual panel measuring 20cm wide by 19.5cm tall after blocking. A knitted edging of 2.5cm wide finishes the blanket neatly around its perimeter. An optional fabric backing using one metre of cotton jersey and matching polyester sewing thread can be added for extra warmth and a polished finish.

Techniques Used

This pattern is a knit-along (KAL), meaning it is released in multiple parts, with this PDF representing part one of the series. Knitters working through this project will encounter and develop several important techniques:

• Stranded colourwork – the traditional technique of carrying two or more yarn colours across the back of the work simultaneously, creating floats, and producing bold repeating motifs. This is the primary technique used for the blanket panels.
• Strandtarsia colourwork – a hybrid technique combining elements of stranded colourwork and intarsia, allowing for larger isolated colour sections without excessively long floats. This technique is also employed within the panels and has its own separate tension specification.
• Panel-based construction – the blanket is built from individual knitted panels that are later joined together, allowing knitters to work in manageable sections rather than tackling the entire blanket at once.
• Knitted edging – a picked-up or separately worked border is applied around the assembled blanket using a circular needle, giving the finished piece a clean, professional edge.
• Blocking – as with most colourwork projects, blocking is an essential finishing step. The pattern provides both pre- and post-blocking tension measurements, highlighting how significantly the fabric opens up and evens out after wet blocking.
• Optional backing – basic sewing skills are required if the knitter chooses to attach a cotton jersey backing to the finished blanket.

Stitches Used

While the full stitch list spans the complete KAL, this first part of the pattern centres on the following:

• Stranded colourwork stitches – worked flat on straight needles across the individual panels, following charted colourwork designs with multiple colours per row.
• Strandtarsia stitches – used for specific motif sections within the panels where isolated colour blocks are required, blending the float management of stranded work with the separate yarn management of intarsia.
• Edging stitches – worked in the round on a circular needle to create the neat border around the blanket's perimeter.

Materials Required

The yarn specified for the blanket panels is West Yorkshire Spinners Bo Peep Pure DK, a yarn from the West Yorkshire Spinners brand that is well-suited to colourwork due to its stitch definition and smooth finish. The Bo Peep Pure range is known for being a high-quality DK weight yarn, ideal for achieving the crisp, clear motifs that botanical colourwork designs demand.

Needles and Notions

• 4mm (UK8 / US6) knitting needles – a standard pair of straight or interchangeable needles used for working the individual blanket panels in stranded and strandtarsia colourwork.
• 3.25mm (UK10 / US3) circular knitting needle, 120cm or 150cm in length – used for working the edging in the round