Good Memories

You know all those sock scrap memory blankets you see all over knitting sites?  You know how they take forever, but still considerably less time than a Beekeeper’s Quilt?  Well, I finally had enough sock scraps to start one.  I realized mine would take even longer than the average knitter’s because I haven’t used fingering weight yarn as much as most.

That’s why I’m much further on my swatch blanket squares.  They are mostly knit in dk, worsted, and bulky.  It is a memory blanket too, incorporating details from the patterns they were taken from.  However, I am wanting to knit more accessories, shawls, and socks, and would like to put those little leftovers to a purpose.  It beats having them form a giant tangle in a bag under the bed.  It also beats having a week long seaming session since, unlike my swatch blanket, these squares are formed by picking up stitches from the previous square.  There are no seams, just two ends to weave in.

And that is the draw of the mitered square blanket: no seaming, just knit whatever, whenever you feel like it.  This can be a no- rules project that changes, in color families and fiber type, as your tastes change over the months.  

So, I used Sue Ann Kendall’s free pattern to get started and size 3 needles.  You can see that my entire sock scrap collection, along with the beginnings of the blanket, fit into one small sized project bag. (Isn’t the “Thank you for Being a Friend” bag from Nomadic Yarns the best?)

I was about four squares in when I received a surprise from the very sweet Andi of My Sister’s Knitter.   Yes, those beautiful mini skeins up top were all gifted to me.   Beyond being full of beautiful colors, and yarns I’d never seen, it was a touching bit of encouragement on a bad day.

It arrived on a particularly difficult day for my grandparents and myself.  I was putting on a smiling face for my son, as I picked him up for school, but not really feeling it.  Then, he said something funny and I watched his lanky form lope out to the mailbox for me and couldn’t help smiling.  He came back with a little manilla envelope full of these skeins and two comforting cups of tea.   My smile became a genuine, toothy grin.

It is so nice to be thought of.  Some people have the gift of encouragement.  Andi is one of those people.   If you’ve read her blog, you know that she is a good internet hostess, always interesting and interested in others.  She likes to get people together for the sake of togetherness, and I think that is an art that can easily be lost today.   Her place is a warm, inviting home where everyone is welcomed.

Now I have real decisions to make about what color to place where on my blanket.  The squares will no longer just be memories of a project I used the scraps for, but will now be memories of a friend’s kindness to me.  It will remind me to be kind in unexpected ways, too.

(slow progress being made on ravelry, kollabora, instagram, and flickr)

I cannot wait for the day where I have some little mini skeins of my project leftovers to gift to someone else.  This has spurred me on to buying more fingering weight yarn recently than I normally would.  I want leftovers for my blanket and for others’.   First, I need to learn the trick to skeining up yarn so nicely.

Check out Andi’s Sock scrap blanket and her interview on Junkyarn about the memory blanket process.