I worked on this blanket in May & June of 2007, of 2009, & of 2011, a total of six months knitting & assembling over four years. I kept a lot of notes for future reference.

Assembling the Blocks
1 block = 4 mitered squares.
Leave a 16”-18” tail when you cast on & you will be able to sew two miters together with mattress stitch. That will reduce the vast number of ends to bury. Unfortunately I didn’t do that.

I sewed the blocks to each other one at a time rather than creating strips and sewing the strips. I wanted the option of changing the position of a block if necessary.

First step in assembly…..mattress stitch makes it easy to sew the miters into blocks because the stripes are 6 rows each and match themselves up.

Second step in assembly……I grafted the finished blocks to each other and then pulled the yarn ends tight to make the “extra row” disappear. Grafting works because you are working a cast-on edge to another cast-on edge, matching the same number of stitches top to bottom.

I decided to graft so that the “V” column of stitches is always going in the same direction. The other option, 3-needle bindoff, makes the “V” column of each block go in the opposite direction at the seam which is great for shoulders but not so great for blankets.

How I Did the Border
Picking up stitches for the border is mindless because you are always picking up stitches, never rows. Avoid picking up too many stitches by picking up only in the V columns, never in the ᐱ columns. Be sure to pick up the same number of stitches along the edge of each color.

A 47” circ worked well to pick up the stitches and knit the border, working flat one side at a time.

1. pick up stitches with right side facing you
2. knit 15 rows of garter stitch; at the same time increase 1 stitch at each end of RS; last row knit (row 15) is WS
3. row 16(RS) bind off with picot bind off
4. sew corners of border

My Yardage
Tahki Cotton Classic, 50g skeins
Each 4-miter block takes 72g of yarn
72g x 12 blocks = 864g
864g ÷ 50g per skein = 17.28 skeins
Add 4.72 skeins for border = 22 skeins or 2376 yds total
That’s the exact yardage but in reality you need as many skeins as colors that you want to use in the blanket.

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May/June 2011: Last block is knit and the blanket is assembled with just one block left to attach….
The border is finished and so is the blanket!!
Oh, yes, I have to hide the yarn ends.

May/June 2009: Wet blocked each square and now 11 of 12 blocks are seamed! I love working with all these colors. I’m going to assemble the blanket before knitting the last block in case I need to balance a color.

May/June 2007: 44 mitered squares finished which will make 11 blocks. My plan is 12 blocks and a knitted border.