Knitted throw - a progress report.

I have been knitting furiously in 'spare' moments but I am still a little under half way there.

You may remember from an earlier post, that I am intending to use up supplies of blue, grey, yellow and white yarns from my stash. I am  knitting the squares in the traditional way for a throw - diagonally increasing one stitch at the beginning of each row, to a total of 50 stitches, using garter stitch. After one straight row I than decrease one stitch at the beginning of each row back to one stitch. I am using 'double knitting thickness' and this is giving me squares of just over 7 inches. I shall need a total of 100 squares and will then adjust the size by the addition of a border.

Once I had completed a dozen or so squares I tried laying them out in a random pattern to see the effect. It is actually quite hard to achieve a random placement in which squares of the same colour, or similar depths of colour do not cluster together in areas which appear to have their own unintentional pattern. After trying for a while I gave up and found some squared paper. I have sketched out a plan, by 'colour group'. I shall still have to pay attention to depth of colour when sewing the squares together. According to my plan I shall need 9 white squares (now completed), 9 yellow/cream squares (also completed), 16 striped squares (two completed) and 66 blue/grey squares (27 completed). I make this a further 53 to go - nearly half way.

The kitchen scales have taken up residence next to my knitting basket. Since many of the yarns are part balls I am checking that there is enough ( about 18 g) to finish a square before starting. A quick check showed me that I would need a further 3 100g balls ( and possibly something for the border) to finish the throw. The yarn I am using is of mixed quality - much of it acrylic. this would not normally be my choice, but many of the part balls were left over from knitting for my son when he was little and he didn't like the feel of pure wool. It has meant a very inexpensive project and, since it will cover the spare bed and will hopefully look pretty, without getting much wear, I am hoping that the yarn will not lead to too much stretching or pilling. Most of the yarn I already had - the three new balls were purchased at our market for a total of £4.47! I have plans for embellishing the final throw and I am hoping that all the materials required for this will already be in my stash.

The collection of squares so far -