The Comfort Blanket KAL is back for 2023

I'm delighted to be able to announce that the Comfort Blanket KAL is back for 2023. It ran very successfully in 2020 and 2021 but last year I missed it due to the death of my Dad.

The year doesn't seem complete without my most popular KAL event though so I figured it was a good time to dust it off and relaunch it for another year.

Tell me more...

The Comfort Blanket KAL 2023 is a 4 week KAL which walks you through every step of planning and getting started on your mitered square blanket journey. I say journey because these blankets - typically knit from leftover yarn are generally considered to be long term projects. No one is expecting you to knit a blanket in 4 weeks - please don't worry.

Instead the KAL is intended as a springboard to get you started, with ideas and inspiration as well as practical tips for planning and construction.

The KAL will start on May 1st and each Monday for 4 weeks you'll get an email with that week's topic. The information will also be available within a dedicated Facebook group where you will be able to hang out with fellow Comfort Blanket KAL'ers and chat about your various projects.

And at the end of the KAL you’ll get an ebook containing all the information from the 4 weeks, along with a few other tips and tricks.

Previous year’s participants

If you took part in the previous KALs sit tight, as the joining instructions to the Facebook group and your automatic invitation will be heading your way soon. 

We all know that these blankets are a labour of love and you are welcome to come and join us again to add some more mitered squares to your work-in-progress. Or if you are a finishing superstar and you want to join in with another - because one mitered square blanket is never enough - it would be lovely to have you on board too.

Blankets: the joys of doubling up

Garter Ripple Squish - pattern here

Yesterday I shared a post on 10 things to make with leftover sock yarn (that isn’t a sock yarn blanket). Because, let’s face it, sometimes you just need something gratifyingly quick to make. And with all the will in the world, and for all it’s many virtues, a sock yarn blanket is anything but quick to make.

I would however, add the addendum that sock yarn blankets can be speeded up quite considerably by the simple act of doubling up. Holding your sock yarn leftovers double or even treble can result in a very pleasing, squishy fabric that knits up quickly. It also eats through your stash with amazing rapidity - perfect for when you want to make a substantial dent in the leftover pile.

In this blog post here I talk about my Mahoosive Mitered Square project - which still isn’t finished, but that’s by the by. Holding the yarn doubled results in some really pleasing marled effects and makes the large squares knit up surprisingly quickly.

For a project with the yarn held trebled, please check out this post on my Garter Ripple Squish baby blanket. I originally knit this as a traditional DK baby blanket, but then being slightly overwhelmed by the size of my leftover pile I decided to knit with 3 strands at once. Yarn management was a bit more of an issue here but I solved it with the nifty use of a colander to hold the strands separate.

If I did this again, and I have to admit that I’m tempted I might consider winding the yarn into a magic ball - or 3 before I started - if only for ease of portability. I did find, as I moved around the house that my 3 yarn strands tended to get a bit tangled, no matter what I did to try to contain them.

For my next doubling up project I’m considering trying crochet granny squares. But with my notoriously awful crochet tension that could prove to be a bit tricksy. Still, I’ll give it a go and see what happens - watch this space.

Have you ever tried a project with the yarn held double/treble? And if so, did you find it helpful to pre-wind your strands to save on tangling. I’m curious about the different approaches we all take on this.

One is never enough

Giant granny square blanket - Number 2

So it seems that granny square crochet blankets should come with an advisory health warning. After finishing my blanket last week I found myself sitting in bed on Sunday morning feeling slightly bereft and not sure what to do with myself. So of course I did the only acceptable thing in these circumstances and started another one.

Addicted, nah, not me.

Apologies by the way if you were under the string impression that this is a knitting blog. I promise that normal service will be resumed shortly.

And if you are tempted over to the way of the crochet you might like to know about a CAL over on Instagram. Run by @martushkaknits the #crochetfromyourheart CAL is for any crochet project that you are undertaking this summer. Lots of people are doing scrap yarn granny squares or similar long term projects and it’s really wonderful to see all of their progress. If looking through their fabulous projects doesn’t get you reaching for the crochet hook then nothing will.

Blanket conumdrums

It's not often that I'm seized with a sudden need to finish up a project (as my current WIP pile will attest to) but this weekend I found myself gripped by a sudden notion that my sock yarn blanket needed to be finished. Ravelry tells me that it has been on the needles for over 4 years now and even though I knew at the outset that it was a long term project I think it's fair to say that my progress on it has been sporadic to say the least.

To square it off I only needed to add 12 more squares so I set about it with a zeal - only slightly hindered by the fact that I could only find part of my sock yarn scraps. As I was knitting on the squares I found myself pondering the reasons the project had taken so long and I found myself coming up with a pros/cons list of working such a blanket:

Knit as you go - the appeal of "no sewing up" at the end is a big one, I'll admit. I've tried projects like this before - the Beekeeper Quilt is one that springs to mind - and my initial enthusiasm soon wanes in the face of all those teeny tiny squares waiting to be joined. Balanced against this however is the fact that the blanket soon loses any hint of portability. A lot of my down-time is either when travelling or on holiday and this blanket soon became too large to take anywhere with me.

It also means that you need to pay particular attention to colour placement if, like me, you don't want a completely random effect. I was really keen to create a blanket with a cohesive balanced look and that meant being a little bit careful with my colour choices. I have a few key colours and yarns which I wanted to space out throughout the blanket and I didn't want to risk running out whilst only half way through. When you are joining squares at the end you have a lot more freedom in colour placement and can move squares about to your hearts content until you find an effect you like.

Anyway, back to my progress. I finished just 1 square short of the blanket - it will be done tonight though. But in spreading it out on my bed I had to face an uncomfortable truth. I had succeeded in making it wide enough - which was very pleasing. I am though quite a few strips short of having it be long enough to pass itself off as anything more than an oversized lap blanket.

I have decided though for the good of my sanity that's it's necessary to mark it in Ravelry as finished, to deal with the ends and to actually use it as a finished "Thing".

Part of the nature and the eternal appeal of these blankets is that you can go back and add to them over time and that's exactly what I plan to do with this. For that reason I'm not going to add a border right now. I'm just going to use it and enjoy it, and who knows, whilst I'm snuggled up under it during the coming winter months I might just add to it a little here and there.

The challenge of course will be not to put all my yarn scraps in a "safe place" but to keep them where I can find them.