New Year, New Project
It seems only right and fitting to celebrate the New Year by starting a BIG project. Last year, that project was the Winter Solstice Shawl - chosen for a variety of reasons which included it's celebration of winter at its best as well as the challenge the pattern presented.
This year's project is quite different.
On New Year's Eve - because I couldn't wait any longer - I began casting on tiny mitered squares to make Shelly Kang's gorgeous sock yarn leftover blankie. While I had read about it online back when the original was being knit, I don't know that I had any serious interest until versions of it started to show up at Hillcreek Yarn Shoppe last winter. After spending some time one morning fingering the squares of a blankie in progress - which to me were beautiful little gems - I came right home and added the blankie to my queue.
Still, given the type of knitting I do, I'm sure it's a bit of a surprise to some of you that I would do this type of project. That is, it's a surprise unless you know one little fact about me. My sock yarn leftovers are the only project leftovers I keep and guard jealously. Socks wear out, but I love every skein I buy....and I can't bear to part with such beauty.
The tiny square on the bottom right? That's yarn from the first pair of socks I ever knit. The big square above? It's some of my all-time favorite yarn, and the socks are (sadly, finally) disintegrating. In many, many ways this blanket reminds me of the quilts of my childhood....the quilts that were filled with patches made from leftovers of my own clothes. As I child I loved it when Mom would show me those patches. As an adult, I'm loving the magic of making a memory blanket of my own.
This year's project is quite different.
On New Year's Eve - because I couldn't wait any longer - I began casting on tiny mitered squares to make Shelly Kang's gorgeous sock yarn leftover blankie. While I had read about it online back when the original was being knit, I don't know that I had any serious interest until versions of it started to show up at Hillcreek Yarn Shoppe last winter. After spending some time one morning fingering the squares of a blankie in progress - which to me were beautiful little gems - I came right home and added the blankie to my queue.
Still, given the type of knitting I do, I'm sure it's a bit of a surprise to some of you that I would do this type of project. That is, it's a surprise unless you know one little fact about me. My sock yarn leftovers are the only project leftovers I keep and guard jealously. Socks wear out, but I love every skein I buy....and I can't bear to part with such beauty. The tiny square on the bottom right? That's yarn from the first pair of socks I ever knit. The big square above? It's some of my all-time favorite yarn, and the socks are (sadly, finally) disintegrating. In many, many ways this blanket reminds me of the quilts of my childhood....the quilts that were filled with patches made from leftovers of my own clothes. As I child I loved it when Mom would show me those patches. As an adult, I'm loving the magic of making a memory blanket of my own.
My blankie is fully 63 inches across - 20 squares - and I imagine it's going to take forever to finish. What you see here is literally 5 days of solid work on my blankie. I'm sure I would be faster if I didn't stop to fuss so much over the colors. (I'm trying to be random, but it's just not in me!) It doesn't help - ahem - to have 'help' from the children in picking colors. They already love the blankie as much as I do.
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year Celebration, and have a very Happy and Blessed 2011.
PS. If any of you knitters have any fingering weight sock yarn leftovers that you'd like to share, I'm more than happy to take them! It only takes about 2 grams - or 10 yards - to make a square, and I would love to add my friends into the magic.
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