I've been completely ambushed by an unexpected knitting obsession lately. Perhaps it speaks to my Scottish calvanist upbringing in that it uses up all the odds and ends of stash that I hang on to but which are good for very little. On the other hand, perhaps it's all I can wrap my brain around at the moment in the midst of house renovation and keeping track of contractors.
And this obsession is................................... 4 inch squares... lots of them... all knitted on the bias (no gauge issues here)... all knitted in sock yarn, 4 ply or skinny DK... all knitted on 3mm needles... all knitted in garter stitch.
It started off with a couple of squares for Oliver's Blanket. I could use up some left-over sock yarn and contribute to a good cause. Then the house-move got in the way and I didn't finish them in time for the big sew-up. I found them again a week or two ago and finished them off... then, despite the fact that I've got a gathered pullover on the needles, and an unbloggable project on a crochet hook, I pulled out my stash of left-over ball-ends and knitted a few more, and then a few more again. This has blossomed into a four-squares-per-evening habit.
And what am I going to do with all these squares? Sew them up into a blanket of course, and during the course of my square knitting frenzy, some rules have appeared to clarify themselves in my mind regarding the blanket:
1) No yarn will be purchased especially for this project (with the exception of possibly yarn for the border and sewing up). This should help moderate the obsession as in another week or two I will run out of appropriate left-overs and have to wait for more to be generated as spin-offs from other projects.
2) All the ends will be sewn in as I go along (to alleviate some of the madness that finishing will bring).
3) No squares will be sewn / crocheted together until all the squares have been knitted so that I can decide on a good layout once all the pieces are before me.
4) No yarn heavier than skinny DK will be used.
5) A minimum of 225 squares will be used ( should make a 15 square x 15 square blanket - approximately 60 inches to the side)
Needless to say, this is going to take some time, as of last night, I only had 21 squares!
Finally, as I really can't bring myself to post without pictures, here's a beautiful sunset over West Cambridgeshire that I photographed from outside my in-laws front door on Boxing Day...
PS The Resident Radiologist, who has been known to lurk here occasionally, has a big job interview tomorrow so I wanted to wish him the very best of luck.
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