Introduction, First Miters

Hello everyone! Like you all, I was inspired by Cara to knit miters. I knit my first miters using what I had on hand, Misson Falls 1824 Wool, which happens to be my favorite yarn so far in my knitting experience. I knew I wanted to knit more miters, but I wasn't sure what yarn to use. After checking out the Tahki Cotton Classic and other cotton and cotton-blend yarns, I decided to stick with the 1824 Wool. I love knitting with it; It makes a lovely mitered square; And it is washable. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to purchase a project's worth of yarn at one time, so I am going to pick up balls in colors that appeal to me as I can afford them. Pictured above are my first miters, and pictured below are the colors I have purchased so far. Yesterday, I began a miter using the blue/green and brown combination.

Hello and Intro

Hi, thanks for letting me join you guys! I too was inspired/obsessed with Cara's lovely miters. I work on one block at a time and seam as i go. I've made three so far.



I'm using elann sonata on #6 denise circs. i bought 20 skeins to start and will buy more as needed. i'm hoping to make a double sized bedspread, or a 6x6 grid, so i have a long way to go. more info can be found on my blog.

Blog Contest!!

I'm leaving very early tomorrow morning to drive to California, and my mitered squares are going to be the knitting I do in the car when I'm not driving. I decided to have a contest on my blog, and since it's miter related, I thought I'd post it here, so yall could play too!! :D

I'm having a "Guess How Many Miters I Knit On our Drive to CA" contest, and the prize will be a $25 gift certificate to Blue Moon Fiber Arts (home of Socks that Rock!). If you're interested, please visit my blog at: http://knitpsychos.hello-lovely.org! It should be the first entry. :D

Happy knitting!
Manda

Happy Mothers' Day!

To everyone!

I've knit more miters, but no pictures just yet - I'll post progress tomorrow.

The Lone Corner Square

Hi, y'all! First of all, here's my miter progress:



Woo hoo! Oh, and that "Corner Square" in the title? It's not that pink and taupe one in the picture... It's this square:



...which was supposed to be this square:



BUT - because I'm an idiot - I overlooked the fact that you have to start with a backwards 7 as stated in the Mason-Dixon no-sew mitered square and picked one that was a regular 7. So that square is going to become this one instead (AKA The Lone Corner Square):

Hee hee - oops.

And oh, I started the hot pink and light pink miter (the one underneath the completed upper-right corner square) which IS a backwards 7, just upside-down. *Whew!*

That's all folks! Keep on mitering on!

Hi!

Hello everyone, thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Karen, and you can find me over at www.knit2blog1.blogspot.com . I don't have a tried and true method for my MSA yet, but I do admire the MS Paint method that Rachele came up with. I have 6 squares done so far, but I only have pics of the first 2 squares. I am experimenting with colors right now. I also have decided that some of the sqaures will represent things that are happening in my life. My hubby and I lost our precious dog, King on Easter Sunday. You have to understand, we'd had him in our lives for five years. He was like our child. When he was hit by the car, I was knitting my first miter square. This blanket has become like a tribute to him. The first square is "King's Square".

I have plans for other squares to represent the recent tragedies in our nation. I live nearby Virginia Tech so the tragedy that unfolded there a few weeks ago hit rather close to home.

I didn't mean to make my miters sound so depressing. I have often heard people refer to knitting as therapeutic and the new yoga. It wasn't until now that I understood exactly what they were talking about. It really does help me deal with stress, trauma, and sadness. It brings me joy and it relaxes me. Knit on, miterers!

Intro

Hi, guys! :)
My name is Manda, and I reside in Blogland at http://knitpsychos.hello-lovely.org.

Cara has been a great inspiration to my knitting. First the Jaywalkers, now the Mitered Square blanket. I see how and why they are so addicting, however I have things that "MUST GET DONE" right now... and this blanket is just a "eh. When I finish it, it'll be done" sort of project. I am feeling the Call of the Miter, though.

Yesterday, reinspired by this KAL, I knit a mitered square!! :) I have ideas for color combos, but I know I will forget... so I'm going to have to start writing them down. Or maybe borrowing the square template below. ;) heeh

Here are my squares so far:

Inspiration

Of course, the inspiration of this KAL: Cara of january one. Her MSA - which at this point has yet to be seamed - is a sight to be seen! I go through her MSA archives over and over like they were a fashion magazine. What a delight!

The Mason-Dixon MSA that really brought the idea of the mitered square to life for me. If you go to the September 2006 archives about halfway down the page, you can see some great info about this blanket including the recipe for a cool partial garter mitered square. Also, if anyone knows how to see individual archived posts on their page, let me know.

Stephanie, a member of the Mason-Dixon KAL - which btw is a great place to find inspration - made a fabulous MSA.

The Naked Sheep has a wonderful MSA in progress with very lovely pictures.

How often do we "stumble upon" great knit blogs while surfing the web? Well, I found Tikkupeitto that way. She has made over 100 blankets for a huge blanket project that you can read about on her blog, and the pictures are stunning. This one is my favorite MSA; talk about clever! True, not all of the blankets are made up of mitered squares, but they really are impressive - they kind of seem like art projects. And check out her recent archives to see all of her charity sock knitting!

If you're wanting to knit the miters but are not crazy about the playful, bold stripes, DollyDimpleKnits has a bea-U-tiful MSA in progress using a self-striping yarn to make her squares. Gorgeous.

I am NOT a Photographer.

Here is my MSA progress.





Pasting those check marks on the MSPaint layout is so satisfying!

Miter On!

Thanks so much to Rachel for starting this KAL. It's the perfect thing for me since the blanket I intend on making is gift. It's for a dear friend's baby-to-be. She'll find the gender out on the 24th..but I'm not sure I can wait that long to start it!!
I have knit with Tahki cotton before and have to say I'm not a huge fan. I was wonder what people thought about Cotton Fleece by Brown Sheep Company? They seem to have a large variety of colors.
I'm planning on the blanket being 9 squares. Other than that, it's still in the formative stage! Need to make a trip to the LYS to ponder...

Can't wait to see what else folks get up to on this KAL. Cara was such an inspiration!

Lynn
www.knotsinarow.blogspot.com

MSA KAL: Questions? Answered!

Pattern? For my miters I use the Psychedelic Squares Afghan method, BUT I don't make the very last color change because I don't want to try to perfectly match up those tiny tips of color when I am seaming. Speaking of seaming, I am using the Mason-Dixon Knitting method of making my Mitered Squares Afghan as minimal sew as possible. To die for. Of course, you can use whatever method you want to make your MSA - Check the sidebar fo ideas if you aren't sure or want to do research.

Yarn? I am using Cotton Ease (by the way Lynn, I love it too and have used it for years - aren't you just so happy with the more practical colors of the new line?) Whatever cotton or cotton blend that you have in your stash will do - even if you have to buy a couple of complementary colors, this project is such a great stash-buster! I do suggest that the yarns are exactly the same gauge or there may be not-so-attractive rippling.

Color Tips? Even if your blanket is going to be "random," its a good idea to at least make sure the colors in a miter go together. I am the mega-literal type and I just used a grab-with-my-eyes-shut method to select the next two colors for the MSA that I made in College. Man, it turned out fugly. You can use whatever colors make you happy, but I really didn't trust myself with my current color spread to make a "pleasantly random" blanket, so I made a planned layout.

Layout? How to make a planned layout using the highly technical MSPaint program:

First I laid out my yarn in a rainbow as best as I could, and then I selected colors from MSPaint that looked like my yarn. Here I had to do some major inventing of colors, and even after all was said and done, a few of the yarn colors are so saturated that I couldn't get a match. I just tried to get as close as possible. I made twenty little squares and filled them in (using the little bucket icon) with the 20 yarn colors that I made (one of them is just a white square for my white yarn). You with me? Okay.

Then, I made a tiny square and began to make "concentric" squares around it until I had basically a blank miter square (what four miters will look like together). Then I made a cross on it, trying to get the intersection as close to the center as possible. I didn't save my actual square, but it is more exact than this one that I just made on the fly:

I copied and pasted that square until I was happy with the size, and then I began filling in (using the dropper and the bucket) the miters how I want them. It took some time but it was easy and worth it. Plus, I made a check mark to copy and paste on completed miters - who doesn't love checking things off?

If there are any questions, let me know; I am sometimes detailed to the point of confusion.

To Join? Just leave a comment on this blog or email me at 53stitches at gmail dot com. Make sure to give me your email address so I can invite you to make posts!

I think that's pretty much it for procedures - after all, we are here to knit this blanket because we were inspired by Cara to miter until our fingers fall off. Who cares how we do it?

Flattery by Imitation

I was certainly inspired by Cara of january one to make a Mitered Square Afghan, and if you were too, then come on over and show us the progress on your Mitered Square Afghan.

I did an MSA in college and ended up giving it to Purple Heart. It was like Cara's - random colors, clever placement, but also unlike Cara's - individual miters rather than four like miters making a square. I had mixed feelings about this blanket, which was the main reason that I gave it away. I liked the process of knitting the miters, and I liked the freedom of the random color selection, but it turned out too random for me. So on the new MSA, I am going to incorporate some ideas that I love:

1) I love Cara's idea of making four squares that have a single Main Color and four other Complement Colors.

2) I love the tutorial on Mason-Dixon (scrooolllll down to May 10, 2006) that shows you how to do a *minimal* sew MSA.

3) I love the idea of a planned MSA as opposed to a random four-square creative placement thing-a-ma-jig which I can never pull off. When I do random, it always just seems busy or clashy or um, what's that word. Oh, yeah: "ugly."

Okay, so based on that, I came up with a pretty sweet layout:


The little squares on the side are more or less the colors of Cotton-Ease that I have. I know... Cotton-Ease. Sue me. BUT I have old colors and new colors and it turns out to be a really nice spread. Anyway, the black check mark I am using to copy and paste over the squares that I have completed. A few of the colors are not exactly true to life because I am a little bit technologically challenged and used MS Paint; HOWEVER, I am in love with this layout and can't wait to see it coming together.

Okay, now talking size: based on a little Googly research, this MSA will fit a Twin, which should be perfect for my 7 month-old baby girl when she is ready for her big girl bed. (Hopefully it won't actually take that long to make the blanket. Ha.) Thats 80 miters, and I can already see that mitered pillows are in the future as well...

Okay, so let's begin, shall we?