Blankie Friday - The Reckoning

The last time we had a real Blankie Friday, the last time I posted an updated number of squares with a nice clear picture of the blankie was on March 2. Sheesh. That's over a month! And there are only 17 new squares in that time. See, there were things. Things that got in the way. Things like that blue stripey sweater and the lace socks. But the lace socks are done for now - at least the two that need to be for samples - and the blue sweater is at a point where it can go on hold for a bit now that the pieces are all knitted. Especially considering that the weather is going to be warm before the sucker is finished.

I really do love the blankie, though, and I am ready to get down to work feeding it the sock yarn. Let's do a little reckoning and see just how far behind schedule I've gotten. Let's start with a little background on the plan. I want it to be about 1.5 times long as it is wide. It's 23 squares wide, so that would mean that it needs to be about 35 squares tall . Right now I'm at 27. So I need about eight more rows, or somewhere around 132 more squares. Ulp.

The goal was to try and finish before the State Fair entry deadline on August 14. That's about 125 more days to get this blanket done, and I need to allow time for knitting on the edging and blocking the thing out. Not to mention that I've got two out-of-town trips planned between now and then that will take a bit of time out of the equation. Still, at three squares a day, I could have the 132 squares knit up in 44 more days. That sounds like it's still within reason. My plan for the coming week or two at least, maybe more, is to crank away as many squares as I can each evening. Blankie wants to go to the fair, and I want to help it.

Without further ado, here it is in its current glory:







Oh, and because I know *someone* is going to ask. The blanket is my own design. I wrote a tutorial for the benefit of anyone who wants to knit it or something like it. Scroll down and look on the right hand column, you'll see the links.

Now for a little follow-up on yesterday's post.

Suze, the term "salad" is used quite loosely at Cafe Latte. The ones I ate included way too much rich dressing, noodles, cheese and meat. They were quite decadent and I ate them pretty much only to assuage my guilt at wanting to eat only dessert for dinner in the first place.

Wannietta, the sock yarn is intentionally self-striping. Shoot. I thought I had blogged about the process involved in this, but darned if I can find it. No worries - I'm going to be doing some experimenting again in the near future. It's been a while since I dyed this and set it aside, and I was a little disappointed in the results originally, but since I started knitting it up I have new hope of getting acceptable results the next time. I'll blog it, I promise.

Joe, your beer bottle is gone forever. So is your pint glass. We discussed this before I gave it away and you agreed to it. And I love you for sharing.

Dan! Thanks for commenting. Hey, everyone! Dan is the guy I was telling you about yesterday. He's the one who makes those super-cute bags I wanted to buy. Here's his Etsy shop, but sorry - I already bought the monkey bag. You'll have to wait till it comes in the mail to see it. Trust me, it was the cutest one.

Okay, must go knit blankie squares!