If you read my knitting posts you know I knit socks, a lot of socks. I have a scary number of handknit socks, and have knit additional socks for other people. The thing about knitting socks is that you're left with dribs and drabs of leftover yarn. Sometimes I use the leftovers for swatching something else, and I once made a pair of baby socks as a gift for one of our post-docs. But, that barely makes a dent in the pile of leftovers. So, I read with interest about a year ago about a project making wonderful use of such leftovers, a blanket.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I realized that the time had come. Following Shelly's directions, I grabbed some sock yarn and made a square:



It's a very small square, about 3.5" from point to point.



Shelly had something like 760 little squares in her blanket, and my estimate of what I'll make is comparable. Fortunately, there's virtually no sewing. Once I have the first 25 squares or so, new squares are added by picking up stitches on the edges of already completed squares:



At this point, I've joined up 7 panels of 6 squares each and added some additional squares to the next row. And I've used much less than half of my accumulated yarn scraps. Each square evokes a project. The royal blue is my first ever pair of socks, made with Fleece Artist merino purchased in Nova Scotia. The socks have long since worn through, but the leftover yarn will take its place in my blanket. The green and purple striped yarn in the picture above is Lornas Laces Shepherd Sock, purchased in Alexandria, VA, when I was visiting a friend for Passover. I still have the socks I made from it. And so on. Each square tells a story, and reminds me of a time and place: where the yarn was purchased, where I was when I knit it up, and who the project was for. It will take me a long time to finish this blanket. I'm less than 10% done, and it's no longer a portable project. While it sits draped over the arm of my sofa, I have other projects that travel with me: not surprisingly, I'm working on another pair of socks.



When I'm done with these socks, I'll have another pair of socks, and some leftovers for my blanket. But I'll have something else, in addition. Instead of a pattern, I'm using a custom template for these. This is something I've been working up to for a while. Most commercial sock patterns make assumptions about the density of stitches that I don't agree with. So, if I follow these patterns, I have three choices: knit a sock that doesn't actually fit me that well, knit a sock with a stitch density I don't like, or modify the pattern. My template will enable me to knit the toe of a sock, make some measurements at that point, and then make a sock that fits me perfectly.

And when I'm tired of knitting with skinny yarn, I have just under 4 oz some roughly worsted weight handspun (by me!) that's waiting to turn into a scarf.