In Which I Ask: Can You Spot Which One of These Squares Is Not Like the Others?

Gentle Reader, you know that Mother of Mossy and I are dedicated blanketeers for Project Linus, a most worthy organization. For the past three years, my local chapter has participated in Make A Blanket Day, when some of us (about one quarter of the hundreds who make blankets for our chapter) gather and knit and crochet and sew blankets en masse in a huge push to get as many done at one time as possible. They also provide yarn kits, which members can sign out, use to make a blanket, and return.

Since I like to make teen-sized blankets, when I saw this particular kit with 4 whole skeins of three different purples of worsted weight yarn, I snatched it. I added a half of a one-pound white skein I had in my yarn corner, and found a pattern I thought would be perfect--mod, a little retro, and would show the different colors to best advantage: Playful Primaries from one of the Vanna White afghan pattern books.

So I started in April or May of last year. But each square is made up of single crochets, and those can be soooo sssslllloooooowwww. I admit it: I got bored. So I set it aside when only half the squares were made.

Whoa! Last week I got a flyer inthe mail announcing this year's MABD. Uh oh, better get this one outstanding from last year done before I go to this one. There are no yarn police and these ladies are too nice to say anything, but how could I sign out a new kit in all good conscience if this one wasn't done? So I sat down, determined to get it done. For two weeks I worked on it every night.

On the second to last square, I ran out of light purple yarn. "NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed silently in anguish. The reason I made as many squares as I did is that I paired the light and medium purples together and made as many squares as those skeins would allow. I had two leftover balls of the same size. So I thought the light purple would make the same number of squares. No, Gentle Reader, it didn't.

I have no idea why one out of four skeins of the same brand of yarn would not be the same length in reality as the others, but it wasn't. So I took some of the yarn I was going to use to make the border (the second skein of medium purple) and made two squares using it. Which means that one giant circle has two quarters, the same color, that touch. It rankles. A lot. It's really important to me that each of these PL blankets be as perfect and beautiful as I can make it. These scared, sometimes sick, sometimes homeless, sometimes abandoned kids should have one beautiful thing, made just for them, with kindness and good will wished into every stitch, and this fails my Blanket Perfection Meter.




So, can you play "One of these things is not like other?"



Oh, and just because I can, here's a really lousy shot of the mountains with snow from Friday. I'd have to climb on my roof to get a better shot or drive up to the foothills, and I didn't have time to do either.