Okay, enough with the humor. I have a burning question that y’all are equipped to answer.
I plan to knit a baby blanket for my next project, but I am waffling on the yarn type and the colors.
This is the pattern. All garter stitch, super easy mindless knitting. I have looked at a lot of the projects and this is the one I like best:
I considered using rainbow colors, but the finished blankets using those colors did not appeal to me. I think it could work if all of the colors were grayed or heathered a bit. Also, the yarn needs to be no more variegated than tonal for success.
Now, the difficult choices:
- The proposed baby will live in New Mexico at 6,000 ft elevation. Summer daytime temps are way hot but tend to cool a bit at night. Winter day temps are pleasant to cool.
- Given that, I am strongly considering knitting the proposed blanket in KnitPicks Shine Sport, cotton and rayon.
- I also considered KnitPicks Cotlin, 70% cotton/30% linen.
- I prefer all natural fibers, but I may have to put up with some nylon, especially if I go with fingering weight.
- I eliminated worsted weight yarn because it seems to me that it would be too heavy and thick. When Elder Son was born I received a small, machine-knit blanket from a friend; it was fingering weight and I liked that it was so easy to wrap him in it.
- I am also considering doing it with sock yarn, preferably merino. Pros are machine washable and dryable, an opportunity to use up stash, and an infinity of colorways. Also, wool can provide more subtle colors, as in the blanket pictured above. Cons are it would take roughly forever and possibly be too warm.
If the fact that the baby will be in New Mexico rang a bell in your memory, yes, Elder Son and wife are attempting to get pregnant. It is not a sure thing, given her age (early 40s), but I am nothing if not optimistic. Obviously, no one knows the sex of the potential child yet, so I am looking at non-gendered colors.
Here are the color combos I have put together from the Shine Sport page. In all of them I have put the colorway that would be the narrow stripe when changing from one main color to another either at the bottom or to the right or in the lower right-hand square.
Pastels:
sd
Neutrals:
sd
Brights 1:
as
Brights 2:
as
Brights 3:
sd
Brights 4:
sd
Brights 5 (KP Comfy fingering; cotton/nylon):
Clearly, I prefer bright colors, or neutrals because they always look so classy; pastels are anathema, but if everyone else likes them I will suck it up.
Other contenders are KnitPicks Hawthorne multi; for that I think I would use all one colorway, perhaps with narrow stripes of contrasting solids. If I decide price is no object and I want to really, really enjoy the knitting, Malabrigo Sock, Malabrigo Mechita, Valley Yarns Huntington, Dream in Color Smooshy, Cascade Heritage Silk are all (or mostly) merino and have lovely colors. Oh, and what about Blue Moon Fiber Arts? Cascade Ultra Pima (109 colors!)?
Oh, the choices are endless…
kmkat & her kneedles 
What if you used two strands of sock weight with one strand being a neutral color throughout the blanket? That would give you a DK weight blanket and you could use brighter colors with the neutral color toning things down.
I think the neutral colors are classy and will easily stand the test of time. That being said, I have made several baby blankets using Appalachian Baby Design yarns.
I was going to advise exactly what Deb said. I was also going to advise bright colors, but I **always** advise bright colors in any situation, so you can take that with a grain of salt. 8)
I like brights 4 and 5 and also the Hawthorne Multi (it’s “tyical southwestern colors” and maybe you do or don’t want that.
I’d go with fingering weight for speed.
I like Brights #1, myself.
The Neutral is classy but I think you can’t go wrong with most of the brights. 2 or 3 would be my choice. It’s large swaths of stockinette, so choose a yarn and palette that are pleasing enough to YOU to get you to enjoy the process.
I just made a baby blanket out of KnitPicks Comfy. It’s 75% cotton and 25% acrylic. It knit up beautifully and is so soft.
I also like Cascade 220 Merino Superwash
If *I* was knitting it, I would go with the pastels. But I like working with pastels. Since you don’t like pastels, I would say pick whichever of the brights you like best and go with that! The neutrals are nice and classic too, but I would probably want color on a project that large to keep my interest. I am, however, a notoriously fickle blanket knitter.
Generally I don’t knit baby blankets in pastels. I also make the blanket bigger to be useful for a longer time.
Brights 3. Brights 4 was close, but that one DARK BURGUNDY was evil.
Light, washable wool? Light to ward off solar heat gain, wool because duh.
And another thought. I did a baby blanket in one color of Shine, I loved it, my hands hurt at the end. Life is short; Malabrigo anything (except Ravelry red; red yarns are weak, and the color is fading). A lingerie bag and wash on the gentle cycle- all is good.