Kitties on My Lap Blanket – A Review of the Magda Makes Pattern

There is something quietly magical about a blanket that earns its name the moment you finish it. The Kitties on My Lap Blanket by Magda Makes is exactly that kind of project — one of those patterns that feels like it was designed not just to be made, but to be lived in, draped over your legs on a slow Sunday morning with an actual cat deciding whether your knitting deserves to be kneaded or ignored. If you have been scrolling through Ravelry or Pinterest looking for your next cozy crochet project and keep landing on images of soft, textured blankets with the most charming cat silhouettes you have ever seen worked into a stitch pattern, this is the one you keep coming back to.

Let me walk you through everything you need to know about this pattern — from what makes it so appealing to the yarn choices that work best, the skills you will need, how long it takes, and why so many crafters consider it one of the most satisfying makes of their year.

What Is the Kitties on My Lap Blanket?

The Kitties on My Lap Blanket is a crochet blanket pattern designed by Magda Makes, a designer beloved in the crochet community for her clean aesthetic, thoughtful construction, and patterns that photograph beautifully without sacrificing wearability or comfort. This particular blanket features an allover pattern of sitting cat silhouettes created through a combination of tapestry or mosaic crochet techniques, giving it a graphic, modern look while remaining achievable for crocheters with intermediate skills.

The finished blanket is generously sized — large enough to be a true lap blanket for an adult, and many crafters size it up to create a full throw. The cats are rendered in a way that manages to be both minimalist and immediately recognizable, which is part of what makes the design so appealing. You do not need to be a cat person to appreciate the aesthetic, though it certainly helps if you are.

Magda Makes has developed a devoted following precisely because her patterns occupy that sweet spot between visually striking and technically accessible. The Kitties on My Lap Blanket is a strong example of her design philosophy — it looks like something you might buy in a boutique shop, but it is also something you can make yourself with a reasonable time investment and a straightforward learning curve.

Who Is This Pattern For?

This is marketed and generally discussed as an intermediate pattern, and that assessment is fair. If you are comfortable with basic crochet stitches — single crochet, half double crochet, working in rows, reading a basic chart — you will likely find this pattern very manageable. If you have never done any kind of colorwork in crochet before, this might be your first colorwork project, but it would be a gentle introduction rather than a deep end.

The tapestry or mosaic technique used for the cat motifs does require some focus, particularly when you are first learning to read the chart and understand the rhythm of the color changes. However, Magda Makes patterns are known for being well-written, and the instructions are clear enough that most intermediate crocheters work through the learning curve relatively quickly.

Complete beginners would likely find this challenging as a first project, but someone who has made a few scarves, simple dishcloths, or basic blankets and is looking for their first real design challenge would find this to be an ideal step up. The repetitive nature of the cat motif means that once you have worked through the first repeat, your hands start to learn the rhythm, and the project becomes more meditative than taxing.

The Technique: Mosaic and Tapestry Crochet Explained

One of the most common questions people have when they first look at this pattern is about the technique. How are those cat shapes created? The answer lies in colorwork crochet, which encompasses a few different methods that create patterns by working with more than one color of yarn.

In mosaic crochet, you typically work with one color at a time per row, creating the illusion of a two-color design through strategic skipping of stitches and working into stitches from previous rows. This means you are never actually carrying two yarns at once across the same row, which many crocheters find easier than traditional tapestry work. The result is a beautifully layered texture that has more depth than a flat colorwork project.

In tapestry crochet, you carry both colors across the row, switching between them as indicated by the chart. This creates a slightly denser fabric because of the carried yarn, but it gives very clean color changes and is excellent for creating detailed motifs.

The Kitties on My Lap Blanket uses one of these approaches (or a hybrid) to render the cat shapes across the surface of the blanket. Whichever method is specified in the pattern, the result is the same — sitting cats that look crisp and intentional, without the fuzzy edges you might see in a less refined colorwork design.

If you have never done colorwork before, YouTube is your best friend here. There are dozens of excellent tutorials specifically for mosaic crochet and tapestry crochet, and once you understand the basic principle of how the color changes create the image, the chart becomes much easier to follow.

Yarn Recommendations

Choosing the right yarn for this blanket makes an enormous difference in how the finished project looks and feels. Because the design relies on color contrast to make the cat motifs visible, the most important factor is choosing two colors that have strong contrast between them. Think a pale cream or soft white against a deep charcoal, a dusty sage against a warm terracotta, or a classic navy against a soft blush. The cats will pop against the background in proportion to how different the two colors are from each other.

For fiber content, most crocheters gravitate toward one of a few options for a blanket like this. Acrylic yarns are practical, washable, and come in an enormous range of colors, which makes them excellent for colorwork where you need two very specific shades. Lion Brand Pound of Love, Paintbox Simply DK, and Caron Simply Soft are all popular choices that work beautifully in this kind of project.

If you prefer natural fibers, a smooth cotton or a cotton blend gives excellent stitch definition, which matters a great deal for colorwork — you want those cat shapes to be crisp, not muddied by a halo or too much texture in the base yarn. Paintbox Cotton DK and WeCrochet Dishie are two options that crocheters mention frequently in the context of mosaic and tapestry work.

Wool and wool blends are another option, particularly if you are making this blanket for use in a cooler climate and want the warmth that a natural fiber provides. Be aware that wool has more stretch and memory than cotton or acrylic, which can affect your gauge, so swatch carefully before committing to a full blanket’s worth of yarn.

Regardless of what fiber you choose, stick with a smooth, ply-twist yarn rather than anything with a halo, boucle texture, or loosely plied structure. Those yarn characteristics will obscure the colorwork detail and blur the cat silhouettes.

Hook Size and Gauge

Blanket projects are forgiving in terms of gauge compared to garments, but gauge still matters here because it will determine your finished size. Follow the recommended hook size in the pattern and make a small swatch in the colorwork technique specified before you start. Colorwork can change your tension noticeably compared to plain stitching, and many crocheters find they need to go up a hook size when doing tapestry or mosaic work because the carried yarn creates a tighter fabric.

A good rule of thumb is to swatch in the actual technique you will be using for the project, not just a plain stitch swatch. Work a small square using both colors and the chart, block it if you plan to block the finished blanket, and then measure it against the pattern gauge. Adjust your hook size accordingly.

If your gauge is slightly off and you are using it for a lap blanket rather than a precise fitted item, a small adjustment in the number of pattern repeats is often easier than fighting your natural tension. Most experienced crocheters will simply note that their blanket came out slightly larger or smaller and call it a win either way.

How Long Does This Blanket Take to Make?

The honest answer is that it depends enormously on your speed, how much time you dedicate to the project, and how quickly you pick up the colorwork technique. For an average-speed crocheter working in sessions of an hour or two at a time, a lap-sized blanket like this typically takes somewhere between four and eight weeks. Faster crocheters who sit down for long sessions might finish in two or three weeks. If you are picking it up between other projects or knitting for just twenty minutes in the evening, a couple of months is entirely reasonable.

One thing that helps is the repetitive nature of the cat motif. Once you have worked through several repeats and the rhythm is in your hands, the pace picks up considerably. Many crocheters report that the first few inches of this blanket take longer than the last few feet, which is a good sign — it means the learning curve front-loads the difficulty and the rest becomes almost meditative.

This is an excellent project to bring to a crochet group or work on while watching a show you know well. The chart is not so demanding that it requires total silence and concentration, especially once you have established your rhythm.

Finishing and Blocking

Finishing a blanket like this well makes a significant difference in how professional it looks. The two most important finishing steps are weaving in your ends properly and blocking.

Colorwork projects accumulate a lot of ends — every time you switch colors, there is a new tail to weave in. Some crocheters choose to crochet over their tails as they go, working the loose end into the stitches of the current row to save finishing time. This is a great time-saving strategy if you are comfortable with it, though some people prefer the security of weaving in ends with a tapestry needle at the end.

Blocking transforms a crocheted blanket. Even if your work looks a little uneven or stiff off the hook, a good wet block — soaking the finished blanket in cool water, gently squeezing out excess moisture without wringing, and laying it flat to dry pinned to your measurements — will even out the stitches, relax the fabric, and make the colorwork really shine. If you have chosen a fiber that does not respond to wet blocking, a steam block or simply laying it flat and allowing it to rest overnight can also help.

Take photos before and after blocking. The difference is often remarkable enough that people new to blocking are genuinely surprised, and having that comparison is wonderful motivation for finishing future projects correctly.

Why Crafters Love This Pattern

The Kitties on My Lap Blanket has generated a genuinely enthusiastic response in the crochet community, and it is not hard to understand why. It sits at the intersection of several things that make a project deeply satisfying: a beautiful visual result that impresses people who do not crochet, a technique that teaches you something new without overwhelming you, and a finished object that actually gets used.

Blankets made with love and skill have a way of becoming part of a home’s daily life. They get grabbed every time someone settles onto the sofa. They travel to different rooms. Actual cats sit on them, which in the case of this particular blanket feels entirely appropriate. The Kitties on My Lap Blanket is not a display piece that lives folded in a basket — it is a use-every-day object that happens to be beautiful.

There is also something to be said for the way cat motifs have a kind of universal appeal that transcends niche crafting audiences. People who do not follow crochet designers or spend time on Ravelry still respond to a soft, well-made blanket covered in cat silhouettes. It makes an exceptional gift for cat lovers, new homeowners, anyone going through a difficult time who needs something cozy, or frankly anyone you want to make feel seen and cared for.

Where to Buy the Pattern

The Kitties on My Lap Blanket by Magda Makes is available through Ravelry and typically also through the designer’s own website or Etsy shop. Pattern prices from independent designers like Magda Makes support the designer directly and fund the creation of more beautiful patterns in the future, which is worth keeping in mind. Buying directly from the designer’s website rather than a third-party platform, when possible, means more of the purchase price reaches the person who created the work.

Once purchased, the pattern is a digital download — a PDF that you can save to your devices, print at home, and refer to throughout your make. Most designers provide pattern updates to original purchasers at no additional cost, so if there is ever an errata correction or an updated version of the chart, you will typically receive that automatically.

Final Thoughts

There are patterns you make and quickly move past, and there are patterns that leave a mark — the ones that teach you something, produce something you are genuinely proud of, and make people ask where you bought it. The Kitties on My Lap Blanket by Magda Makes belongs firmly in the second category.

Whether you are a long-time crochet enthusiast looking for your next satisfying project, someone who has been crocheting for a year or two and is ready for colorwork, or a gift-giver looking for something meaningful to make for someone who loves cats, this blanket delivers on every level. The pattern is well-written, the technique is learnable, the finished object is genuinely beautiful, and the cats — those quietly perfect cat silhouettes — are exactly the kind of design detail that makes you fall a little bit in love with the craft all over again.

Cast on your two colors, find a comfortable chair, and let the cats begin.