Blanketed in Snow and Squares

A few weeks ago, just before we had a heavy snowfall, I visited Volunteer Nanaimo to drop off a couple of blankets I had crocheted. I had been wondering where to donate them and through a Google search found this organization that, among many other things, donates blankets to community members who need them.

When I was there, I mentioned that their website indicated that they collect knitted or crocheted squares and asked if I could contribute. The woman I was talking to said that they currently had an embarrassment of riches in the form of a large supply of squares. What they needed, she said, was someone who could put them together. “Oh,” I said confidently. “I can do that,” even though this was not something I had ever done before. I figured it was probably within my capabilities, especially with the help of YouTube videos.

Accordingly, I was given a big bag of knitted squares and a couple of balls of yarn. The timing was perfect because the next day the snow fell and I was housebound for about ten days. Instead of just watching bad television, I was able to watch bad television and put together a blanket!

After I had done that, and after the roads were clear, I took the blanket to Volunteer Nanaimo where they were very grateful. I mentioned that I had some leftover squares and, if they had some more, I could make another blanket. Sure enough, after a quick trip to a back room, they provided me with another supply of squares. These were more diverse than the previous set because the sizes were not all the prescribed 8″ x 8″, and many were made from multiple colours of yarn. They were also of varying yarn weights, so the task of piecing them together would be a little more challenging than the previous effort.

Fortunately, this is my kind of puzzle. I made good use of the bed in my guest room in laying out the squares to create the required size of blanket. Volunteer Nanaimo preferred something to fit a twin bed and asked for a blanket six squares by nine squares, so that is what I put together. Some squares were a little smaller and some a little more than eight inches, but knitting is stretchable enough that I was able to use most of them. Only one had to be discarded.

I thought it would be fun to use up all the multicoloured squares and include the single-colour squares only to make up the necessary size. Once I saw the mixture of colours and yarns, I decided to add to the variety by turning some squares sideways. Instead of all the knitted rows being aligned, some went one way and some went another. After a bit of rearranging, I realized although there would never be a perfect layout, I could be content with a sort of balanced melange.

As I was putting this together, it occurred to me that this was a very appropriate solution, under the circumstances. The squares had been made by a number of knitters who were not known to me and probably not known to each other, either. They were all using leftover yarn from a variety of different projects, and the squares they had created reflected both the colours of their work and the type of yarn they worked with. Some were probably related to seasonal projects, some I could tell were originally for sturdy things like slippers, and some were for finer items such as shawls or baby clothes.

It pleases me to think that all these miscellaneous balls of surplus yarn came together through the kindness of strangers to create blankets for neighbours they will probably never meet. There is something profound in that.

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