Knit a Baby Blanket for Beginners - Determine the size of the blanket. Many baby blankets are 32 inches wide by 36 inches long.
Look at your yarn label to determine how many stitches to cast on. For example, if your label shows that a 4-by-4-inch swatch knitted on Size 8 needles is 17 stitches, then you'll need eight 4-by-4-inch swatches for a baby blanket that is 32 inches wide. Therefore, you'll need to cast on 136 stitches (17 x 8 = 136).
Knit a Baby Blanket for Beginners
Cast 136 stitches onto your right-handed needle. Do a knit stitch (where the working yarn is in back of the needle) into each stitch for your first row.
Change to the purl stitch (where the working yarn is in front of the needle), purling each stitch for the second row, as well as every even row to come.
Continue knitting, by knitting the odd rows and purling the even ones. Use a knitting row counter to keep track of even and odd rows.
Once you learn how to knit and purl -- the basic stitches of knitting -- you can knit most anything. One of the simplest projects for beginners is a baby blanket. Although there are many different variations of the knit and purl stitches, a baby blanket knit with alternating rows of the knit and purl stitch produces a knitted fabric called the stockinette stitch, in which one side is flat and smooth (the knit side) while the other is bumpy (the purl side). - by eHow
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