I have  been forced out of my blogging lethargy to show you a fabulous sock yarn blanket I have just finished 🙂

It’s made entirely from the left over bits and bobs I had in stash from pairs of socks, a couple of 4 ply shawls and some soft toy creations (and I still have some oddments left but that’s another shameful story 😉 )

I’m so pleased with this I have to share the finished article first so you know what I’m raving about…

Here’s one without Pixie lounging on half of it!

 

Firstly – do you know what a sock yarn blanket is?? Or why you would need one???

The Problem:

You normally buy 100g of sock yarn to make a pair of socks. This could be a massive pair of size 10 “man socks” or dinky size 4 (my size) Susan socks. As a lot of my socks are for me – at the end of each project I have left over sock yarn…It gets stuffed in an oddments bag…and stares at me…saying, “knit me!”…saying, “you can’t throw me away! I’m too pretty!”…

I had three large freezer bags of sock yarn (after about 20 pairs of socks and a couple of 4 ply shawls)…what to do with these scraplets??

The Normal Response:

…is to make a sock yarn blanket of little domino squares as you go along. Something like this… (Ravelry – Sock yarn Blanket by Shelly Kang)

This is beautiful but I couldn’t see myself sorting out my colours to make this work. It didn’t “speak to me”. (love the ginger cat at the bottom of the pic BTW Did you notice him?)

My Solution to the Sock Yarn Problem:

I saw this absolute stunner by Anita Grahn the Domino Star Stashbuster Afghan

The pattern cost $8.00 USD or around £6.34 GBP – it is very well written and IMHO worth every penny!

Lots of helpful instruction and very clear diagrams of which round of domino diamon you were working on like this…

I was inspired and excited!!!

I didn’t want a random hotchpotch of colours so I tried to look at what colourways I had… some green…more blues… a lot of pinks and reds…a ton of orange/yellow/red!

The Pattern:

So onto starting the pattern, more enthused than I have been about knitting in the last year!!

The first 4 rows, at the centre of the star were an absolute beast to get right – what you see here is my fifth attempt after deciding only a very smooth yarn will do! (I started with slightly hairy yarn – if you can make that work, I swear, you  are a witch!!!!)

Once the central star (the hardest part ) was done, I started the real fun – adding the domino diamonds…

 

Each of the diamonds is made on picked up stitches or stitches from the black dividing strips and made with nothing more complicated than straight needles and “k2tog” in the centre, either side of a stitch marker.

There is no sewing up in this blanket!!

You do need a LOT of stitch markers though – I used these little hair bands from Claires accessories for mine (you’ll see them on the needles in all the pictures)…

 

I quickly built up a star of “greeenish” diamonds, unfurling from the intersecting row of black stitches like opening petals of a flower….

…then some blueish diamonds!

… then some white “infill” diamonds (made from 3 different balls of left over whites) and black edging stitches (made again form a couple of leftover balls) …

Once I had the white dominos and the black edging done it was time to play with the pinks and reds….

 

So what did I do when I ran out of yarn?:

As the dominos got bigger it was obvious I was going to use up some of the colours and couldn’t finish entire diamonds with one colour- wasn’t that the point to use up the  scraps??!!

I really started to play with having one  solid colour, alternating  (2 rows each colour) with another variegated colour… or six rows (3 bumps) of each colour, or 2 by 3, or 5 row stripes… It was total “playtime” in every domino!

Here’s some closeups of some of the combos… (and a shameless excuse to show off some of my faves…)

 

Cat Summoning Blanket:

After the “red and pink” round it became clear that this was in fact a magical blanket… A cat summoning blanket; 

Each time I needed too think about a new colour combination, I threw the blanket of my living room floor to look at the colours. Within 20 seconds, Ziggy, Kitty or Pixie would appear and sprawl on the blanket. I swear, they ran clear across the garden to lay on the thing!

 

The final edging:

Working around the entire edge, adding White diamonds as I went and then several rows of black to finish was a gargantuan slog. I had 2 x 100cm interchangeable needles joined with a connector. I fascinated a number of people  of my train commute as they watched me shuffling the stitches painfully around the needles!

It was actually good train knitting – mindless knit or purl for 1700ish stitches!! And I managed to use up black 4ply from 3 different projects!

Where is it now?

The blanket now has pride of place in my conservatory, keeping company with my tartan crochet blanket (which is in surprisingly toning colourways!)

Like this:

This is a fabulous and inspiring pattern and I recommend it to anyone who has a stash of sock yarn, or any other gauge of yarn that is begging to be used up 😀

 

Completed Knit Report
Name:	Domino Star Stashbuster Blanket
Pattern:	Anita Grahn the Domino Star Stashbuster Afghan
Yarn:	Written for socky yarn (4 ply) but with a nifty needle size change could easily be adapted to any gauge.
Pattern Problems:	The first 2 or 3 row were a fiddly beast – then a total joy. Edging was lengthy and a bit of a slog but aren’t they always?!
Pattern Modifications:	None. The pattern is written so you could add another couple of rows of diamonds but I stopped while I was still enthusiastic 😉
Washing and Wearing:	Will need to be hand washed because of all the different yarns.
Knit It Again???:	Yes – once I re-reach critical mass of sock yarn!
Difficulty:	Easy (once you get past the first 4 rows – you need to be happy with picking up stitches though – but no sewing – yay!
Rating:	Easily, 5/5.  I would give it 6/5 but that’s a mathematical sin!
Other Postings Relating To This One:	none