Blocked Blocks

Block is one of those great old words that sounds like what it means:  like a stump, like a chunk, like a stop.  But in spite of all that solidity,  my blocks are progressing.

I've completed three for Molly's Afghan and have decided to think ahead, beyond the blocks, to the point a few months from now when I am faced with 63 individual squares and the task of putting them all together.



From the Learn to Knit Afghan Book: Basketweave (#3) and Garter
Stripe (#1) and a wild card square--
Letter "M".

I'll do what finishing I can as I go:  weave in the ends,  wet block,  and edge with the contrasting color.  Today I merely steam blocked to see what the dimension of the square would be:  8.5 X 8.5 inches.  A bit larger than my estimate, but not so much as to radically alter the size of the finished item.  As long as I keep to my gauge, I should have plenty of yarn.

I've assembled granny square afghans before, and the sewing or crocheting together isn't all that onerous, particularly in the presence of some bingeworthy television.

So I am looking forward to how righteously smug I'm going to feel when it comes time to put it all together.   Here's hoping that smugness doesn't go before a stumble.

The Year of the Blanket

Not just the blanket of snow that is thickening all over the Boston area.

January 24, 2015

Same table. February 9, 2015

And it's still coming down, with as much as another two feet over today and tonight.

No wonder my knitting visions are of blankets and oversized sweaters.

One niece is heading to college in upstate New York in the fall and since I can't knit snowshoes I thought I'd knit a blanket.  She requested her new school colors--gray and forest green--and I'll be knitting the Learn-to-Knit Afghan from Barbara Walker's book of the same name.  It consists of 63 squares covering a range of knitting from simple knit and purl to lace, cables and colorwork.  I'll be subbing in a couple of personalized squares, and working the squares in gray and white with a forest green edging.  The forest green yarn is caught in a snow drift between here and somewhere out west, but I expect it to arrive soon.

Cascade 220 Superwash.  Silver Gray & Aran.