Coming Clean.

I was reading Teenuh's post and thinking about her crazy agreement to control her sock yarn buying tendencies. I was snickering to myself while looking at her stash and thinking, "wow she has got some serious stash!" Then I went into my garage to look for some blue yarn to make my square for Thom's afghan. I looked all through my stash and didn't seem to have any blue or gray yarn in the appropriate weight. I did however seem to have quite a bit of yarn.

So I am now trying to catalog more of my stash onto ravelry. I added just a few things, although I did just buy the 3 skeins of Paton's classic wool today (who can resist they were on clearance for just $2.00! and someday I will felt with it...) but I realized I have tons of yarn in there I haven't even looked at or touched for at least a year... So sadly over the next couple of weeks I am going to try and post most of my stash onto Ravelry and not just my good stash or my recently acquired stash, because I have been collecting for years now and most of what is listed up there has been purchased in the last 2 years... I am just wondering, is it really worth it to list the cheesy acrylic caron simply soft and red heart pounds of love onto Ravelry. Most were bought with the intention of using just a little bit, but needing the color... Honestly do I have to be THAT honest??


Now for my Thom's afghan square:

This was knitted in the round from the center out. it was nice and easy. I knitted it in sock yarn first to see how the pattern would work over many more repeats than I would need and it worked great. Here it is knitted on size 2 needles in Trekking XXL left overs I had lying about.

This one is made with the Lion Brand Yarn Baby Soft solids in (obviously) blue. The squares are both 4" x 4". The rules were it needed to be knitted with a gauge of 20 - 24 sts / 4" and have 3 rows of garter on the border. So I thought instead of picking up stitches, just knit it in the round and finish with 3 rows of garter border. I quite like the way it looked in Trekking. After 17 rounds my square was 4" by 4". So here is the super simple pattern.

Round square:

Cast on 8 stitches. Distribute around a set of dpns (I put 2 sts on needles 1 & 2 and 4 sts on needle 3 so I don't have to mark the beginning of the round, if you use 4 needles, mark beginning of the round.)

Row1: K 1 into the front and back of every stitch. (16 sts)

Row 2: *K1 into the Front and Back of the stitch (kfb), k2, kfb * Repeat from * to * 4 times.

Row 3 (and all odd rows until garter stitch) K around.

Row 4: *kfb, k4, kfb*, repeat from * to* 4 times.

Row 6: *kfb, k6, kfb* , repeat from * to* 4 times.

Row 8: *kfb, k8, kfb* , repeat from * to* 4 times.

Row 10: *kfb, k10, kfb* , repeat from * to* 4 times.

Row 12: *kfb, k12, kfb*, repeat from * to* 4 times.

Row 14: *kfb, k14, kfb*, repeat from * to* 4 times.

Measure your square, if it is 3.5" then work the rows as follows, if not continue in the pattern until your work large enough then work rows 15 and 17 as your odd rows.

Row 15: Purl around

Row 16: *kfb, k16, kfb* , repeat from * to* 4 times.

Row 17: Purl around and bind off.

Use the center cast on tail to sew the center hole shut and weave in the ends.

Rinse and block it to 4" x 4".

This pattern is based on the principle of a flat circle and will continue to grow outward. So as long as you continue the pattern Row X: *kfb, kx, kfb* repeat *to* 4 times... and the increases are aligned as corners, you can make this square as large (or as small) as you want.