Layout

Y’all know I’ve been working on my I Love Leftovers sock yarn blanket for a while now (since October 2015, to be exact). It started with these 3 squares:

I knitted in fits and starts for a while. By August of 2016, I only had 26 squares done. By July of 2017, I was at 121. As I finished them, I blocked them (so they lay nice and flat) …and stowed them away in these boxes. It turns out each box can hold 50 squares neatly.

These make for excellent travel knitting. You can pack a lot of balls of leftover sock yarn in a very small project bag, and the squares are about 4.5-5” square. A couple weeks ago, I hit 200. That was my goal… it seemed like the right amount.

Today, I vacuumed the carpet and got out ALL my squares. First, I sorted them roughly by color:

And then I started fussing with layout. My initial idea was to make a ROYGBIV wave that travels from red in one corner to violet (well, I extended violet to pink) in the opposite corner. I’ve been fiddling with a few squares here and there, but this is what I have right now:

The grid is 12x16, which you’ll note only requires 192 squares. My leftovers blanket has leftovers! I’m still trying to decide if I like that rainbow square in the top left corner or not. The multicolored squares look more muddy in this photo, but are more lively and interesting up close.

I did some practice seaming on a couple squares and I think it’s going to be mattress stitch – miles of mattress stitch. I’ll sew rows and then attach the rows. And then… I’ll see about picking up stitches on the outside to work a garter border in black. I’ve made a ton of progress but this project is far from done!