It wasn't that long ago that I thought I would never knit a blanket. Blankets are big, and that means an awkward, time-consuming and probably expensive project. After knitting lots of socks, though, I found that I had a lot of leftover sock yarn, and I decided I needed to make something with it. On Ravelry, I found a pattern for a mitered square blanket knit from sock yarn and like-minded Ravelers willing to trade yarn. I decided my own way to make and attach the squares, however. The pattern attaches the squares in a zig-zag formation as each new square is knit, but I wanted to emphasize the square shapes and also have more control over which squares are adjacent. I knit each 40 stitch square on size 2 needles, using 2 mirrored decreases rather than a double decrease, which makes a raised line diagonally across the square. Getting to pick from all the colors keeps my distracted brain engaged, starting something "new" all the time.

My squares are 2 3/4 inches wide. So far I have knit about 260, so I am 1/4 of the way through the 768 squares I will need. I laid my squares out, and Isabel "helped".

So far I haven't sewn too many of the little squares into bigger squares. I put together some larger squares. Sewing them actually goes fairly fast and is nearly as mindless as knitting them.

Speaking of Isabel, the little girl (as we call her) is not doing too well. She pulled a tendon on her back leg and she is going to need surgery. She is in a lot of pain, and we try to keep her comfortable. Today she is getting some tests for hormone problems which might make her recovery more complicated. Hopefully soon we'll be able to get some plan for what we do next. I wish I could let her know that we are trying to help her, because she just looks so sad sometimes.