OPAM 2010- January- Knitted Squared Blanket.

Many regular readers will know about my never ending knitted blanket. Never ending because it has taken about three years to get to this point. The aim was to learn a range of stitches and still create an item. It was with The Art of Knitting Magazine which I subscribed to and it came in the post once a month.

With each issue there came a ball of wool and a booklet with the square for that month plus other patterns. Every so often there was a plan to stitch them in the right order.I tried to block them as you are supposed to but that did not always work very well. Pleased with the above patterned sample. Quite an achievement for me considering following patterns baffles me.

Gradually I built up quite a few squares then there was a problem with the publishers and the magazines stopped for about 8 months. So I moved onto other things.

It did start up again but due to an increased workload with the day job at the same time, all I succeeded in doing was building up a wool mountain in my living room. I tried to keep up with the various different stitches but after a while I got fed-up. So I repeated a few of the squares and mixed and matched some others.

Then at Christmas I decided to work out exactly how many squares I needed just to even it up and I took what I needed to Italy with me. I knitted them in the evening, which was really nice after walking round Florence all day. Came back in January and stitched them all together. I then needed to think about the edge.

I decided that crocheting the edging might be the answer and I could use up some more of the still quite big pile of wool. I decided against the picot stitch that I used on a scarf so I think I came up with a form of the ladder stitch. Might need to check that with a book in my sewing/office. Anyway it seemed to work, looks even and I am happy with it.

Then then noticed that some of the squares were a little bare so I decided to make some very basic crochet flowers to add at random to the blanket. I may add to these over the coming weeks if I want something easy to do in front of the television.

So after many months is learning, knitting, waiting, frustration and completion it is DONE!
What do you think? This is the biggest knitted item I have ever made and it is the longest running project that I had on the go.

This is my January submission for the OPAM 2010 Challenge.

Take care all

xx