Types of Organic Baby Blankets?

What are the different types of organic baby blankets?

You have options when it comes to organic baby blankets, but you'll see that there really aren't many differences. We can't cover everything here, but hopefully you'll leave with a slightly more discerning eye as you scan the various manufacturer sites. We'll give specific examples and leave the conclusions to you.

1. Organic Muslin Blankets - these are among the most common organic baby blankets. Muslin is a loosely woven cotton fabric that originated in India. It comes in various thicknesses, the thinnest of which is simply called "gauze." Not all muslin is organic, but if it's made from organic cotton, then the entire muslin sheet is organic.

Muslin is made in a factory. Large sheets are cut to the proper sizes for baby blankets or swaddles, and may be often sewn together to provide multiple layers as a single layer of muslin isn't very thick. We're not covering swaddles here as their purpose is different from that of a baby blanket (burp cloth, nursing cover, swaddle).

Aden+Anais sells the "Organic Cotton Dream Blanket" which has 4 layers of organic cotton muslin, making it a thicker blanket. They also make a lot of single-layer swaddles.

2. Other Organic Cotton Wovens - Muslin is just one form of organic cotton. Anything you own that's made of woven cotton could also be made with organic cotton. To achieve something warmer and thicker than their organic cotton swaddles, Burt's places polyester fill between two layers of an organic cotton "jersey shell." In case you don't know, polyester is a form of plastic.

3. Machine-Knitted Organic Blankets - Most blankets that look like they may have been hand-knitted are actually made on a machine. This includes cable-knit blankets like this one from Burt's Bees.
4. Hand-Knitted Organic Baby Blankets - These are rare. Many could be found on Etsy. Some there are organic, but most aren't, and you'll still find-machine woven organic blankets like this one:
But there are definitely real hand-knitted baby blankets on Etsy. Here's an example:
Actually those are 100% acrylic, which is kind of disappointing for a $64 blanket, but supposedly made by some grandmother, however you can definitely find hand-knitted organic blankets there.

The problem that the big online and superstore-type companies have with hand knitting is that there's no economy of scale to support mass production. If it takes 20 hours to knit one blanket, it will take 100x20 = 2000 hours to make 100 blankets. Their only solution would be to go to cheap labor in China or elsewhere in Asia, but a factory worker there can still turn out more blankets on a machine than knitting by hand. It's really about achieving their profit goals.

Hand-knitted 100% Organic Cotton baby blankets are the only organic baby blankets that we at Sheep Dreamzzz make. We are a 501(c) (3) non-profit charitable organization that exists to provide women in Central America's poorest country the means to feed their families through the work of their hands. We have a small group of women who knit five mornings a week in the small home that we built in Malpaisillo, Nicaragua (we have since given the house to one our workers).

Sheep Dreamzzz has two types of hand-knitted organic baby blankets:
  1. Chunky-weight blankets in multiple colors - these are made with a GOTS-certified 100% organic cotton chunky-weight Peruvian yarn. It's "Bud" from Juniper Moon Farms, and you can look it up.
  2. Lightweight blankets made from an undyed 100% cotton lightweight yarn. On these we do use gray Bud yarn for the sheep, but we've made one with no sheep (so 100% undyed). Let us know if you are interested in that. Here's the yarn.

Here's an example of each. To see see all of our 100% organic cotton blankets, click here

 Sheep Dreamzzz chunky organic baby blankets - 6 colors displayed

 

Sheep Dreamzzz lightweight undyed baby blanket