10 Squares Down, 30 to Go

As I've mentioned in a few of my most recent posts, I've been working on knitting a blanket for Lucas' mom for Christmas. Now that my zombie projects are done in time for Halloween and Tom's event (going on this evening), I am fairly clear until Christmas, so it's time to turn my attention towards items I'm making as gifts for the holidays. The blanket is probably the largest and most time consuming project on my plate, but definitely something I think is worth it. Lucas' mom taught me the basics of knitting back in June when she was here visiting us for a few weeks, and so it's important to me to knit her something to show her what I've learned.

Based on a fleece throw we have here at home, I've decided that my blanket needs to be about 25 inches wide and 40 inches long. It won't be HUGE or anything, but it will be something that Lucas' mom can wrap around herself like a hug. I plan to knit a bunch of squares and then sew them together to form the blanket, and so I made a pattern that's fairly basic and easy for a new knitter like me to handle. I just have to do it 40 times. As far as the yarn I've chosen, I've not picked out set colours -- in fact, to make it more interesting I've decided to make squares out of all of the yarn in various colours I have lying around the house that are all of the same weight. I'm using size 9 (5.5 mm) bamboo knitting needles and 100% acrylic , 4 ply worsted weight yarn. The basic square pattern I'm knitting goes something like this:

- co 20 st
- k 1
- p 1
- repeat x12 (for a total of 13 sets of k 1 p 1, or 26 total rows)
- bo

It's nothing fancy nor do I know much (or anything really) about gauge, but for me, this pattern creates a square that is approximately 5 inches by 5 inches. So that means my blanket will be 8 rows of 5 squares sewn together if I want to get the dimensions I estimated based on a throw we have in the living room. I've just completed my 10th square, so I only have 30 more to go at an hour each (or longer if I'm paying close attention to the television or movie we're watching) between now and Christmas. I think it's a manageable project, as long as I don't let myself procrastinate. I'll keep you posted on my progress - wish me luck!