Saturday, November 21, 2009

Mitre Square Blanket

There's a thrift shop run by a small Lutheran church in my town, and it always has several bins of very small balls of yarn, which sell for a nickle each. A nickle! Obviously, I couldn't resist diving in. My plan is to make a large blanket of mitred squares, using mostly many, many tones of blue, but with an occasional red square just to perk it up a bit. I bought all the blues they had in the bins the day I visited, and added them to the several blue worsted weights in my stash.

The blanket is slow going, though. Each square is made up of two different colors, and, since the squares are about six inches square, the final blanket design will probably run to more than 200 squares.

The good thing, of course, is that with mitred squares there is no sewing together at the end. I'm trying to tuck in the ends after every two or three squares, just to keep that chore under control.

Below is a very dark snap of the blanket-in-progress. It's about 30 squares in size now, and will probably be done in a year or so, since it's already too large to carry around in a knitting bag.





I have no idea where all those tiny balls of yarn come from, but assume there is some sort of group at the church that makes charity goods and rolls up the ends of yarn left after a project is complete.
They also sell magazines for a quarter there, and I've bought quite a few knitting and crochet magazines there, so it's a fun place to visit when I manage to get there during their short hours.
--
Reading note: I just finished The Friday Night Knitting Club, and really enjoyed it until the very sad ending had me in tears. I think the ending is a mistake, actually, as it overshadowed everything that had come before. But that's me. Don't let me put off anyone from reading it. It's good.
Hugs!

3 comments:

Barbara said...

Yeah, I agree about the ending of FNKC. I thought the author cheaped out on an opportunity to go into deeper emotional places.

Yay, nickle yarn! What a cool idea for an afghan.

I'm glad you're back.

Amanda said...

A third chiming in on the ending, it seemed out of place.

My knitting group regularly gets donations of bits and bobs of yarn, and we roll it into those tiny balls. We get the stashes from relatives of knitters who've passed away. They see our listing in the paper, and we're always happy to take on yarn. We have a bunch of charity knitters and crocheters. Granny squares for DYFUS blankets for foster/in charge kids work well with the wee balls and scraps.

Sascha Green said...

That blanket is looking really nice! I wish I had a charity shop with cheap balls of wool near me, that would be my dream! i love going through yarn stashes.