Knitalong - Knitting a Square

And another week has passed by. How is this happening? I started a new job recently and my commute is twice as long. I think that has been seriously cramping my blog style. Although the commute is twice as long it is also twice as nice. I used to have to stand on the train most days, but now at the end of the day I get to settle into a seat and dive into a book while the train takes me home. At the end of the day, sitting is much better than standing!

While I haven’t had much time to blog, I’ve still found time to do other things, including starting something new (even thought I have November mittens to finish, and all the quilt bits laying around makes my sewing corner look like I’m a hoarder.)

A Canadian Ravelry member recently put out a call for knitted squares that could be put together into a blanketthat can be raffled off to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society.  Knitters like to help knitters, and Canadians like to help Canadians, so it seemed like an easy request to fulfill. (And it was a great excuse to start something new, without a long-term commitment.)

The pattern comes from a great book called Knitalong, by Larissa Brown, which celebrates the tradition of knitters getting together. The book offers a suggestion and pattern for a Barn Raising Quilt afghan that can be put together using the squares from a variety of knitters and yarns. It is a great book with some nice ideas.

I had to pull out some of my double-pointed needles that I haven’t used since I discovered magic loop knitting. It was a challenge to get the hang of holding double points again.

My first attempt was to knit an orange coloured square, but it turned out a bit too small. I have a gauge challenge when I knit. If I get the stitch width correct, my row height always falls a bit short. This means that although I followed the pattern correctly, the short row height made the block too small.

My second attempt was to knit a blue coloured square, and add in a few extra rows, to get the square to the correct dimension.

In case anyone wonders why it is good to block knitting when finished, here is what the square looked like before blocking.

I’ll send both blocks off to their destination and hopefully at least one will play nicely with the other blocks, and a beautiful end-product will be created.

Now, it is back to the November mittens (or maybe the quilt.)