road trip quilt

 
A couple of years ago my daughter and I took a road trip to the bay area. I did my research and had mapped out all the yarn shops along our route. My daughter was game and we managed to fit in about 8 shops between Portland and San Francisco.

I had a plan to collect fingering weight sock yarns to make a knitted quilt. I got the idea from Larissa Brown’s book called Knit Along. It’s a fun book with lots of fun projects but I especially fell for the Barn Raising Quilt. Larissa’s suggestion of collecting knitted squares from many knitters and sewing them into a quilt was just plain cool. Upon completion she would auction off the quilt for charity.

Now, I’m all for charity and knitting for others but I have a thing for the beautifully hand dyed sock yarns. What I don’t have a thing for are socks made from those beautiful yarns. I was delighted to see a project I could make and finally surrender to all those fibers for which I had been longing.

Each time we stopped at a shop we would drag our previous purchase with us to make sure we were staying on the right color track. The shop owners joined in the fun and I came home with quite a project in front of me. Of course I continued to find more lovely yarns, including the wonderful fibers Larissa herself dyes with her friends at Pico Accuardi Dyeworks.

These squares are great to knit because they are small, tidy and can be tucked in a pouch and taken just about anywhere. It’s quite fun to stack them up as they accumulate but the most enjoyable element is arranging and rearranging them when it comes time to stitch them together. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever tire of them because I enjoy seeing how each skein of yarn will knit up into its own little square.

It’s a great way to collect yarn when visiting a new shop; one little skein at a time. Whenever I’m on vacation or travelling anywhere I enjoy stopping in at the local yarn store. They each have their own atmosphere and flair and I always want to purchase a little something. A skein of yarn is a simple a souvenir to tuck in a suitcase. No concern about breakage and no one will stop you at the airport. Buying enough yarn for a sweater can be expensive and bulky, but a sweet skein or two is trouble free.

These little squares are fun and easy. The initial difficulty is learning to knit with the small 5 needles, but it’s truly much easier than knitting socks. Once you knit a few rounds you’ll have it all figured out and you’ll enjoy seeing how different each yarn knits up. Check out Larissa’s inspiring book and after knitting a few squares you may also quickly become addicted! Have fun

 

                  

 

Comments

[Molly]

So beautiful. Something Ms. Animals-with-toenails-dancing-on-her-bed can only dream of. ; )

[Molly]

Love take-along crafts, though, and am trying to get inot knitting, so the yarn is sitting by the beads-baskets. Brings back the memories of embroidering jeans and cut-offs and shirts back in the 70's when I was backpacking or camping because it was fun, and could be tucked into a backpack and taken with me anywhere. Still have a rainbow collection of embroidery thread, waiting for me to use again???

[Vickie E]

that's an amazing knit....wow.