So, sometime in 2012, I bought an enormous granny squares afghan. It was very poorly assembled and beginning to come apart, so I got it for next to nothing from the Goodwill store.
When I say ‘enormous’ … there were 24 squares and each one was 24” on a side. It was an impossibly GINORMOUS afghan! The only sane way to wash it would be in an oversized washer at a laundromat.
Right away, I disassembled it. In the process, I discovered that not every square had the same number of rounds. That made neat reassembly of four or six to make smaller afghans less than easy. Also, almost every square had at least one round of wool, which had already felted. Further study led me to decide that the squares needed to be ripped out entirely; it was the only way to remove the wool. I set aside the box full of squares for further thought.

Then, during Christmas week 2013, I decided to eliminate that particular collection of yarn. I read my notes from the year before, and began ripping out squares. There were knots, and some of them had come undone and stitches had raveled. There was one point where someone had used sewing thread to tie a raveled part back together. To top it all, where each round ended, the yarn end measured between a quarter-inch and a full inch! No wonder parts were falling apart! I am very happy that I unravelled it all and sorted out the yarns that had been in it.

Among the many colours, there were several variegated bits. So, the idea for this project was born. In my opinion, variegated yarns look best in stockinette, but stockinette curls. So, I began with the smallest ball of one variegate, cast on 20 stitches and knitted to the end of the tiny ball. I used the crochet-hook cast-on. I slipped the first stitch purlwise , and knitted the second stitch on every row, even the purl rows.
Then I worked a ‘frame’ ten stitches wide all around the initial square. I had planned on just one colour around, but it ran out, and I wasn’t going to rip out and start over, so the fourth side is white. I used the long-loop (or sliding loop?) method to join each round. (I learned it from this: http://string-or-nothing.com/2009/01/15/log-cabin-modular... ) I did have to throw in a few short rows along the sides of the stockinette swatch to keep the garter stitch from pulling it shorter.
2013-12-31 Now, I’m working three sides with a blues-and-white variegate - 36 stitches per side. I have no idea why it’s 36, when it should be 40 … 20+10+10=40 … I could only find 36 on each side!

2014-02-10 I’m working on the fourth side of the 25-stitch-wide purple garter-stitch ‘frame’. It may or may not be the end of this blanket; I’m undecided.

Because of the stockinette parts, it will never lie flat. I don’t care. The bodies that will seek comfort under it aren’t flat either. My hope is that is spends more time covering than folded neatly flat-ish on some shelf or other!

2014-02-21 I think the 35-stitch wide round of purple will be the end. Maybe.

January 6, 2014
A few days ago, I began to use up the yarn from two dozen unraveled (24”x24”) granny squares. I’m knitting the variegated yarns in stockinette - beginning with one in the middle (or middle-ish, since the ‘frames’ around it won’t all be equal) - and picking up around it to work a ‘frame’ in garter stitch with the solid colours. Then I’m picking up and working more stockinette patches with more variegates. Eventually, the outside will be a wide mass of garter or seed stitch.

To facilitate picking up stitches, I slip the first stitch purlwise on every row. On the stockinette patches, I knit the second stitch and the last two on the purl rows - to leave a neat selvage. To reduce bulk along the pick ups, I only pick up in the back loop of the neat ‘chain’ selvages.

In real life, that solid ‘pink’ is neon bright pink, not old rose.

January 7, 2014
Since I’ve been asked to spell out how this particular scrappy blanket is made, here’s how.
Firstly, I just happen to think that variegated yarns look better in stockinette than in any other stitch pattern. I also love variegates, so - in addition to the ones from the unravelled granny squares - I have more than a few leftover variegated yarns. None of them have l_o_n_g colour repeats.
This blanket began with 20 stitches and went until I had just enough yarn left to bind off; I don’t know how many rows, and it’s immaterial anyway.
Then, using the technique from the Log Cabin Modular Baby Blanket, I cast on 10 stitches and worked around three sides with navy yarn. Because garter stitch pulls in lengthwise more than stockinette, I had to incorporate two (three?) short rows along the sides of the stockinette block, after not having thought to do it and having had to rip back to almost the beginning. I only did three sides of the first block, because there wasn’t more of that shade of navy.
Then I picked up stitches across the bottom edge of the two navy strips and the main block’s cast on edge and worked in white until I had just enough yarn to cast off.
Logically, I should have been able to pick up 40 stitches across the top edge (10 + 20 + 10), but I could only find 36! For no reason at all, I was also able to pick up the same number along both navy sides. So, I picked up 36 stitches along each of the navy sides - one ball per side - and knit three blocks of blues/white variegated in stockinette until I had just enough yarn to bind off.
Next, with hot neon pink, I picked up 27 stitches along the adjacent sides of two of those blocks and worked a mitred square (k to two stitches before center, (k2tog) twice, k to end - learned from Virginia Woods Bellamy’s book Number Knitting - The All-Way Stretch Method ©1952.
That left me with the possibility of picking up 90 stitches along the longer sides. I did so with the remaining hot neon pink along the bottom (white block + sides of blues/whites block) and worked until I had just enough yarn left to bind off. I’m using some dark brown the other side (blues/white + hot neon pink) and will continue until I have just enough yarn left to bind off.

February 28, 2014
I’ve worked a knitted-on (using the sliding loop method from the Log Cabin Modular Baby Blanket) 25-stitch ‘frame’ of garter stitch with a dark purple. I’m declaring this blankie finished. I could add onto it, but I’d rather just call it completed and cross it off my (too long) list of WIPs. I have others that I made bigger, but some of them are still waiting for completion. Maybe my days of making adult-sized blankets are over? I have no gas left in my tank for enlarging this blankie at this time.