Where did March go? I’m plugging away on the blanket, and can see progress from last month. 
Scrap Yarn Blanket
December Blanket Progress
The blanket continues to grow one square a day. This month I added several naturally dyed squares from my Garden Wool & Dye advent calendar (I really need to remember to blog about that). I love how the blanket is growing, and like having the daily reminder to slow down with my knitting and enjoy a bit of meditation.
November Blanket Progress
The blanket finally feels like a blanket. I have about two more years of working on this blanket, one square a day, until I’m done. Tomorrow I start my Garden Wool & Dye advent calendar, and I’m looking forward to working some of that yarn into the blanket.
I’m now going to try to sew the pockets on to Elliot’s Harvey sweater. I don’t mind seaming, but these are fiddley and I might end up throwing the sweater across the room and giving up on pockets.
October Blanket Progress
When I look at the blanket I can’t tell much difference between this month and last month. That will probably be the case from now on.
Please note that the children are lovingly looking at the knitting. I promise I had not drugged them, they were just really happy and sweet this morning.
August Blanket Progress
The blanket continues to grow. This is the first month the blanket has started to feel blanket sized. I still have a long way (probably about 28 months) to go. 
Audrey insists that this is her blanket. She says it must be hers because there are green squares for her. She wanted to help me take pictures and proceeded to point out all of the squares that were for her. According to her any green square or pink square is for her.
I might have her pose next to the blanket every month. I will like seeing how the blanket and Audrey grow.
Scrap Yarn Blanket Organization
I love working on my scrap yarn blanket, but keeping the yarn I use for it organized can be a lot of work. For the first two years I had a bags full of yarn and pulled out whatever I could find. It was hard to find the yarn I was looking for and it was messy to look at. I’m on my third year of knitting a square every day, and I feel like I finally have a process for keeping things organized.
I thought I should share my tips for keeping yarn scrap organized for a project. I wish I would have had someone give my suggestions when I was first starting.
Please note that I tell myself several times a year that I’m going to put the yarn back where it came from. That doesn’t happen. I end up tossing the yarn in the bag and it becomes a tangled mess. Since I’ve implemented this process I no longer lie to myself about keeping the bag clean.
How I organized my scrap yarn blanket yarn
When the blanket is small I organize the yarn every time it is square. When I find the yarn is getting messed up more often I switch to whenever the blanket is square or rectangular. I can tell it is time to organize when I get twitchy looking at the bag. Today was one of those days.
Step 1 is to dump the yarn out. By the point I organize the yarn there are several balls that are roaming freely. There are also balls that are starting to unwind. 
Step 2 is to ball up the yarn that is starting to unwind. This part involves getting annoyed at myself for keeping balls that might be too small to knit a square. This time I only had one ball so small I don’t know if it will knit a full square. I love the yarn though, so I’m going to chance it. 
Step 2 involves a trip down memory lane too. Here is the yarn from my first pair of socks. 
Step 2 also involves gratitude. How lucky am I to have a friend that deserves black socks? I hate knitting with black yarn. Making someone socks is a sign of true friendship, but black socks? That’s a bosom friend, and you don’t get many of those in a life.
Step 3 is taking the yarn out and organizing it by color. This is the prettiest stage.
Once the yarn is organized I fill bags with similar colors. That helps me when I’m looking for my next yarn. I usually have an idea of what color I want next, so I just grab the Ziploc bag with the right color yarn in it.
Step 5 is shoving the Ziplocs into the project bag and zipping it up.
I am much happier with the project now that I have found a way to keep my yarn organized. Have you ever struggled to keep a project organized? What steps did you take to stay organized?
mildlygranola 