Three months of near isolation in what passes for winter in Latakia, Syria - on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. Others walk outside with jackets, coats, boots, while I wear long-sleeved t-shirts, pedal-pusher length pants, and flip-flops! But it was deadly boring to be a guest in my brother-in-law’s home with no one speaking any language I do, so I sat and knitted when I wasn’t napping. This blanket is born of that 6-days-a-week isolation. My darling spent his days working in the family bakery and kibitzing with his brothers and the customers.

It would seem that European yarn manufacturers send their end-of-production lots to Third World countries, including Syria. When I bought this yarn in late 2006/early 2007, it cost 25 Syrian pounds per ball; that’s $0.15245 US dollars. Just over fifteen cents a ball!! As big as it is/will be, this will be one cheap blanket!

Unfortunately for me, the colour orange was sold out before I got there. I could just admire it in the finished baby sweaters that were on display for sale. :( I bought all they had left of the purple, and I bought plenty of the other colours.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite finished this blanket when we returned home. I still have half a ‘round’ of the sky blue to finish. I think that will be the last ‘round’ of mitred squares. Yes, it has been sitting untouched, project bag moved from place to place over the last 7 years. Yesterday, I finally worked a few more rows on it. Maybe I can get it finished before the end of this year?