4-Patch Mitered Square Blanket

I finished the borders on this project, and since a couple of people asked me how I did it, I'll write it down here. It's not a "pattern," but just some guidelines: not my finest example of technical writing but if you are experienced with mitered squares, I think you can follow these guidelines.

I am very happy with how this came out. Actually, I am surprised it looks as nice as it does.

I used 4 solid colors and 12 variegated colors to create the 4-patch units. Each took less than one skein of Red Heart or equivalent worsted weight acrylic (this is a charity blanket, so it needs to be machine washable and dryable by non-knitters).

To make one yourself, pick your 4 solids and 12 variegateds and pair them up compatibly (I put a yarn with some green next to green, one with some gold next to gold, etc. To be honest, I put some that were sort of similar too close together, so avoid this.) You can draw a little diagram to remind you of your plan, or just wing it, which is what I did.

Each square is fairly big. I cast on 51 for the first square, knit a row, then next row K24, K3tog, K24.
From there on, knit every other row, and knit the three center stitches together on the next row. You will end up with a square. End with K3tog. You can use any double decrease; just be consistent. I actually used slip 2 as if to knit, K1, pass slipped stitches over. That gave the distinct ridge.

From then on, attach squares to each other. On the first row, you'll cast on 26 then pick up 25 on the side of the previous square. Knit the first row (wrong side) and do a double decrease on the center 3 sts of the next row (your decreases occur on the right sides). Eventually, you'll only have to cast on for the first square in a row, the rest you pick up. I picked the middle stitch up on the middle between the two squares. Does this make no sense? Pick up a book on mitered squares and follow those instructions! Your squares can be bigger or smaller, too.

Hint: using the knitted cast on produces a very nice loop that makes it easy to do the picking up of border stitches.

When your blankie is as big as you wanted (for me, it was 48 squares or 12 4-patch units), use one of the solids pick up stitches on one long edge and knit a 4 garter-stitch ridge border. Do the same with the other long side. Then pick up along the edge of the borders and short edge and do the same. You can't avoid having a solid/border intersection that's the same color on the long side, but you can easily do so on the short side if you plan your colors carefully. Look at how I did it. Of course, you can make the border wider, but I wouldn't make it narrower. You should have enough of the solid color if you made yours the size of mine.

I think you could make a very sophisticated version of this afghan using more sedate solids and nicer yarn. I might even make one for our family room in shades of denim, gold and dark red.

I will be proud to donate this afghan to Project Linus. Leftover variegated yarn is being turned into granny squares for another charity project. I'll put a solid border around them all and it should be cute.

Next, though, I look forward to using the nice Marble yarn to make a crocheted project. Before that, though, I am going to go back to my nice Shetland yarn and Litla Dimun!

References

Want to learn more about mitered squares? Look into publications on modular or domino knitting. Here are some titles:

Domino Knitting

by Vivian Høxbro

This is the first book on the topic I read. It has great practice potholders and such in it.
(whoa I pasted the info in from Ravelry and didn't know it would do the cover, too!) 

Modular Knits

by Iris Schreier

Dazzling Knits: Building Blocks to Creative Knitting

by Patricia Werner
I made this jacket from a pattern in this book--love it.

Module Magic

by Ginger Luters

Ah, Knitting Bringing Happiness Again!

After feeling pretty bad about knitting for most of this year (exceptions have been the nice meetings our friend Dawn has hosted in her home!), I have finally started having more good knitting experiences. I know a lot of my lack of knitting enjoyment is my fault for being so hard on myself and for letting unkind comments get to me more than they should, but hey, being a sensitive person has its good and bad points, as any person like me will tell you!

So, let me share some good things! First, this lovely new yarn came in the mail last week. I wish the good camera could have taken the picture, but we can't find the battery charger--it is not where it is supposed to live! This colorway is supposed to match the patina on a photo of a statue someone sent my friend Ray at Knitivity. He did a great job in making a very subtle colorway. I can't wait to work with this yarn.

Knitivity Down Home Sock Yarn in Patina

And now for my happy fiber-related events. Saturday was the second meeting of the Linus Project group at my UU church. I had such a nice time watching the ladies work on paper piecing, and felt good that even I could help out, because I had done it before, back in my quilting days. I was diligently working on the last row of my Linus Blankie (halfway through the last row--just some borders after that!). But I was watching how Alice, the organizer, gently led everyone along with another experienced quilter, and I got such a warm feeling. Someone said that now she understood why they had quilting bees in the past times--some of these things you need help with! It reminded me of the joy I used to have at the LYS when I could help someone make progress with a project. On the way home, I realized I was genuinely happy, and it made me all teary. I felt a real upwelling of gratitude to Alice for starting the group and making so many contributions to my life in the past. She did so well at the meeting, knowing that between the first meeting and this one, her mom had died (the lady I am making my blankie as a tribute to). Such a strong, kind person.

As if that spontaneous outburst of happiness was not enough, yesterday I had another one. The wife of one of my former coworkers is a teacher, and she recommended I become Facebook friends with one of her colleagues, a high school science teacher in Austin. She said we'd have a lot in common, including knitting. Well, Leyla asked me a knitting question or two, then last week said she was having a lot of trouble with socks. She wondered if we could get together and talk about her sock issues. You know how much I miss helping people with knitting, so I was happy to do this, even though I never met her and didn't know her other than her online persona. Well, once we managed to find each other, we had the most entertaining visit! I hope I gave her some help with sock information, because I learned a whole lot from talking to her on other topics, like teaching, relationships, and marriage. She's really an admirable person, and I look forward to many more conversations with Leyla! I drove home in a very cheerful way, thinking about all sorts of topics she had brought up. Once I am finished blogging, I am writing a thank-you note to the friend who introduced us!

One reason the visit with my new friend was difficult was that I'd suggested we meet at the Gauge shop, since someone had recommended I go to their Sunday knitting group a week or two ago, but it was closed. That was a bummer. The website does say they are open 1-5 on Sundays, so I hope it was just a temporary thing. Local knitters have already lost one LYS, I don't want to see the next closest one go, too! Anyone local have the scoop?

Looking forward to getting together with friends later today and hoping to get more of those last few squares on the Mitered Square Linus Blankie done!

Reading about Knitting: Almost as Good as Knitting?

I have no fun knitting photos to share, but I can report that I am on the last row of the Linus blankie. I got distracted from that by yet another project I can't share, because I am test knitting for my friend. The end product is really cute, so I hope to share it with you all soon. And it uses up sock yarn, another bonus! That project has so many instructions that I've had to only work on it at home for a while, but now I am in a long easy section, so I'll be able to tote it around and finish it. Sadly, nowhere to tote it, though, because our Monday knitting hostess is sick. Get well soon, Dawn!

The blankie has gotten so large that I can't really transport it. I can work on it while riding around in the truck with Lee, which is how I got a little bit done this week. I had to resort to true comfort crafting: I am making simple, traditional granny squares out of the leftovers from the mitered square blankie. I'll edge them all in black and figure out some creative arrangement for them whenever I finish, and I'll have a second Linus blankie!

I've been browsing afghan patterns looking for something to make out of all that Marble yarn I got a couple of weeks ago. I found a nice book at Half Price Books, called Under Cover: 60 Afghans to Knit and Crochet. There are a lot of ideas in it, using standard inexpensive yarns. I found a square that looks like a flower, a bit, in the center, then turns square, so I think I'll try that one.

I've enjoyed quite a bit of knitting reading this week, none of them new books, but ones I hadn't looked at yet, so they were new to me. I enjoyed the new Interweave Knits, and also got another oldie at Half Price Books, Men Who Knit and the Dogs Who Love Them. It has cute dog patterns and fun profiles of men who knitted a few years ago. Since my dog sweaters apparently will stay with the former LYS, I ought to make more at some point, for my future skinny short-haired dog (none of my current dogs need a sweater, even the pug).

The books that have really fascinated me are two books about mittens that were recently reprinted. Now, I have made mittens, but never kept them--they have all been gifts, and have all been standard ones from the Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns (see photo above). I'd been admiring all the fancy mittens I've seen on other people's Ravelry pages and in some of the magazines, but hadn't decided what I wanted to make yet. So, I ordered two mitten books and thoroughly enjoyed looking through them while watching Winter Olympics. The books complement each other well, because one is all about mittens knitted from the cuff up, and the other is about knitting them from the top to the cuff!

Magnificent Mittens and Socks: The Beauty of Warm Hands and Feet,by knitting treasure Anna Zilboorg is so much fun to go through. Zilboorg's personality just shines through, and the photography is lovely. The socks she designed that are similar to her mittens are a great addition, making it quite worthwhile that they re-issued the book to include the socks. These mittens have spectacular patterning and amazingly fancy cuffs. They don't look like something a person living as a solitary in an isolated cabin would come up with! Her technique makes a lot of sense, and I look forward to making a pair of these, just for fun.

Mostly Mittens: Ethnic Designs from Russia, by Charlene Schurch (whose sock patterns you have seen me praise if you have read this blog for a long-ish time) has slightly less extravagant patterns, and they use the more standard cuff-up construction approach, but I love all the things she did with the traditional designs of the Komi people. I learned a lot about them in the book, which was an added bonus. Learning about different traditions is always fascinating to me. I will see what I think about her thumb techniques, but I know I will love making more than one of the fascinating patterns, which look way more complex than they actually are to knit. This is another book that was recently re-issued. I remember when both originally came out (because I am old), but I wasn't in a mitten-loving phase back then.  I'd say Mostly Mittens is more practical, but both are so inspirational--and the designs could easily be translated into hats, bands on sweaters, etc., so I'd get them just as interesting stitch pattern references.

Finally, I want to encourage you to find the Knitting Traditions magazine put out by Piecework. This is more of a reference than a magazine, and has 43 projects that originally appeared in Piecework (which is a magazine that covers all kinds of hand-work).  There are many lovely socks, and some particularly nice shawls, as well. And of course, there is at least one pair of ethnic mittens (Swedish). I enjoy the articles, because they talk about a technique used in the past, then share a modern version of the technique. I've learned a lot from these articles over the years.

So, that's Suna's book report. I need to go work on ye olde secret project for a while. By the way, I really appreciated all the comments on my last post--thank you, kind readers--and I do hope to visit Gauge one Sunday and knit there! I know a lot of my blogging friends are experiencing posting droughts, so it is not just me. But I thank you for your patience as I plow through a bit of a rough time.

Some Words

I haven't had much energy or interest in posting. Still feeling a bit down about knitting and the world in general.

It does make me feel better to be working on this thing. I am now halfway finished with this Linus blankie, which I guess will be called a 4-Square Linus Blankie. Since it will be a rudimentary quilt pattern, I am now doing it in honor of Jackie, who passed away at 87 a couple of weeks ago, and was a wonderful quilter. I enjoy thinking of her, even as I knit with Red Heart, so I keep going.



The other thing that has kept me going is that some of the women I used to knit with have found a way to get together, and seem very keen to keep our group together, so we can share what we are doing with each other. We may get to meet in a restaurant in the future, but for now a generous soul has volunteered her house. Let me know if you are a knitting friend of mine who'd like to join us. I do hope I still have some knitting friends, any way.

I also had a chance to go to the lovely Yarnorama store in Paige, TX, to get some yarn (hadn't been yarn shopping in MONTHS) and to watch friends spinning. I got an offer for some help with using my drop spindle, but now I can't find my fiber. All I found was a wad of dog hair, which was not what I wanted to spin. Even if it is nice, long fluffy dog hair.

I did get some nice yarn. I got Marble acrylic yarn in 6 colors to make another charity blankie. That yarn is nice and soft and in such lovely self-striping colors. I want to crochet an afghan with flower shapes. I haven't crocheted in a while.

Also got some lovely sock yarn--two colors of Jitterbug (including VERY bright pink) and two colorways of new Regia Hand Dye effect. That stuff is so pretty (below is the bright colorway, but I also got two skeins of tan/brown for a shawl).



The other item I got was a very soft blend called Socrates, which has some alpaca in it, and it a lovely tweedy thing. All the colors were really intriguing, but I chose this grayish purple one, the colorway of "Dress Blues". I think it will make lovely patterned socks. My hand is in the picture because I was holding it near the window to get better light. It's been rainy here.



I guess I should show you Litla Dimun, which is taking a break so I can knit with that lovely inexpensive acrylic (ha ha). The photo is a close-up of the center. It's too big and awkward for a photo of the whole thing to be interesting. I am, though, about halfway finished--at the end of the first skein of yarn. Once I stop thinking so much about Jackie, I will go back to the shawl. And then maybe start back on socks and knit more like my old self. I just don't feel like my old self.



I am thinking not many folks are reading this any more, but thanks to those of you who are. I am working on a better self-image, which will make for more interesting and frequent content, I hope.