SP10 and Mitred Square Blankie

This post is dedicated to all things Mitred Square Blankie. Criquette asked about it in a comment to yesterday's post, and my Secret Pal 10 hostess sent out an email asking us to post about our favorite WIP, so this post accomplishes both! Plus, I love, love, LOVE talking about the mitred square blankie.

It all started when I was reading some posts in the socknitters.com forum about "What to do with leftover sock yarn". There a post about a knitter who was making a blanket from all of the leftover bits, with a link to Shelly's website. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was just the thing I have been waiting for. I have been knitting socks like a, well, sock-knitting-fool, for about 8 or 10 years, and have just been shoving the leftover ends into ziploc bags. The ziploc bags were increasing in number, and were full to bursting, and seriously taking away storage area from my stash of sock yarn, but how could I bear to throw it all away? Problem solved - make a blanket out of it all.

Shelly has some great tutorials on how to get started, how to join the squares, and how to do the finishing off with an I-cord edging. The links are posted on the right-hand side of her blog under "Blankie Tutorial." Treat yourself with a visit to her blog - she is a great writer, and her kids are just so darn cute.

I made a small alteration from Shelly's pattern, though. She used size 0 (US) needles and cast on 31 stitches for each square. I tried that, but though it would take forever, so I'm using size 1 (US) needles, and casting on 41 stitches for each square.

I just love the way the yarns are coming together into a lively mish-mash of colors and patterns, and what a great use for all of those odds and ends! Here is a fairly recent picture of it:

And here is a picture of it as the wallpaper on my computer at work. Forgive the messy work area - wow, I'd better straighten up that mess!