Warm Up America Project

DSC03462, originally uploaded by Angela & Gerald.

While this is a picture of an upside down cone (thanks to my Ravelry peeps who pointed that out before I started winding it into balls) you can still see the quantity of yarn. This has since been wound into 9 large balls of yarn and as of last night I have finished knitting 9 rectangles. 2 balls were given to my mother so that she and her neighbor could help out - also helping my mom get her knitting mojo back.

I was excited to work on this because I've always like the Warm Up America group and what they do. My only reason for not knitting for them before now was that previously if you knit up rectangles you had to drop them off at a store and there were too many stories of the store managers just throwing them away instead of mailing them to the appropriate place to be seamed up. This time, I was contacted through my membership with The Knitting Guild of America. For sending me free yarn they asked for my commitment to knit 51 rectangles before December 15th AND they included an address of a real person for mailing them in. I figured this was perfect timing for me to crank out some mindless knitting and help out. I need this too since I've got a ton of work and personal stress all around me.

I worked out the stitch and row count for 4 separate patterns so I don't have to keep measuring all the time. It's a great little system and I haven't gotten bored yet. The yarn is a very loosely plied 4 ply with a heavy cotton component - not exactly the most stretchy but it is soft on my hands. I have to pay attention to knit split the yarn with my needle occasionally but that's pretty much my only complaint so not bad overall.

I plan to knit this monogamously during the evenings until all of my yarn is used up. My calculations have me finishing with plenty of time before December 15th. During the days when I have meetings I've been working on a few warm weather items for my husband - more about those later.