Barn Raising

Knitting has finally resumed, and the theme has been simple. Anything stockinette will do. The Barn Raising Quilt from Knitalong has dovetailed nicely into this mood. Small, simple, quick. I'm not sure I'm really capable of anything else. I tried to start sleeves on Mom's Cabled Cardigan (I want to be done with it already!), messed them up, put it back in the closet, went back to my squares.

At first, I thought I'd do a coordinated quilt out of the sock yarn stash. But once I gathered all of the coordinating yarns, my stash was pretty bare, and, of course, subsisting of my least favorite colors and yarns. So instead I pulled out the grab bag of sock leftovers, and I really think this was the way to go. Every square is different, which means that I'm entertained enough that this thing might actually get finished some day. And that's always a good thing.

Even better, each of these squares has a back story.

This one, for example, is from my first pair of socks ever:

Knitting and photography skills both much improved.

And this one is that same yarn mixed with the Koigu from my Embossed Leaves:

Grandma's birthday socks mixed with a yarn sample from Cider Moon:

Leftover singles from handspun socks, Navajo plied:

And so on.

I tend to like the two-color squares, both to knit and to look at. Plus, you can get away with less scraps.

I don't have enough scraps for 42 squares, but I can go a good long way, and I'm not opposed to cranking out socks just to have more squares. And I might sacrifice a skein or two to the blanket, but at this point I'd really like to keep all of the squares different. I also have some "scrappies" from Funky Carolina that I might spin up for squares. I'm thinking I could just spin them end on end and Navajo ply for potluck squares.

I'll try to post weekly updates of progress so it isn't all squares all the time around here, but if you only see me then, you know what's going on.