Rebecca is – in a word – brilliant.

She’s a skilled craftswoman on many fronts.

But I’ve decided brilliance is her forte.

Well – that and her ability to knit lace. And well – everything else known to knittingdom.

If you read this post, you may have skimmed over this sentence:

There has been an expressed thought that it might be nice if anyone is interested in making a small blanket for each of the kids – it would be well-received. It would need to be something warm, but relatively light-weight. (Wish I were a quilter – wouldn’t a lap quilt for each of these kids be awesome?!)

I’ve thought about it often enough – but left that thought each time thinking, “I just don’t know how I can do that… time… resources.. Would be such a big project. I just don’t know if it’s doable.”

Rebecca – brilliant woman that she is – said to me: “Also, I saw your mention of blankets, I would recommend trying the “Barn Raising” squares, a bunch of us have made them in the past and they pile up pretty quickly, then we have a “sewing bee” to sew up all the squares.”

OH. MY. WORD.

Brilliant, I tell you. The woman is BRILLIANT!

Okay – so just so happens, I have this pattern in PDF form from Sock Summit last year – and the directions related to it are:  “© Copyright 2009, Larissa Brown. Please do not post this pattern on any kind of web site, blog, or listserv, and please do not sale. We encourage you to share this pdf document for charitable purposes and/or point people to http://www.knitalong.net to get a copy for themselves. Thanks!”

Hey! That’s like – US! If you don’t have this pattern – email me! I’ll send you the PDF! Cool, huh?!

So… a couple of thoughts.

FIRST: Let’s do this!

SECOND: The pattern calls for a square worked in sock yarn on size 2 dpns in sock yarn. The goal is a gauge of 7 to 7.5 stitches per inch on gauge. I’m actually doing a test square using size 3 dpns (the closest size I have)- but I’m wondering if we can maybe tinker with this a bit and put it together with larger size dpns… like maybe a 7 or 8 or 9 – since so many are doing hats with needles that size range. Gonna have to brainstorm this a bit.

THIRD: Let’s have an alternative block available to folks who are new(er) knitters and maybe not comfortable with the dpns. Something like this: Lion Brand’s Patchwork Garter Baby Throw.

Here are some other random thoughts…

I’ve got quite a bit of sock and sport weight yarns – those would both work very nicely with the Barn Raising squares.

We should keep to worsted weight on the Patchwork Garter squares.

This is an awesome way to use up those odds and ends of yarn left over after you finish a hat or scarf or socks or fingerless mitts – or whatever! Right now I’m thinking of all of those little bits of yarn I have in my stash bin that really need a reason for being – THIS is their reason for being, folks!

And Rebecca’s idea of getting together and having a sewing bee to stitch things together is – again – brilliant. Let’s jot down November 12th for that, shall we? Be sure to check the Events tab for the details.

Now – we need some more brilliant input on this whole facet.

  1. Anyone got time to do a little math/designing and figure out how many blocks we need for a small-ish sized blanket? Think lap robe size.
  2. Do we have people sign up for this? I mean – well – we need enough to complete a project, right? That’s where knowing how many blocks we need for each one would be good to know, huh? (Too bad I’m so tired right now – or I’d do that…)
  3. Do we shoot for a specific size block and then design our own block patterns – with the modifications that we need – i.e., one pattern for sock weigh yarn, one pattern for sport, one pattern for worsted, etc. With the goal of uniformity. Know what I mean?

Okay – so talk to me, please! Tell me what you think. I need your input. A lot.

Thanks!

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