There is a knitting guild that meets at the Lexington Park Public Library, and I decided to check it out this month for the first time. As luck would have it, the guild was starting a charity project to make a blanket for the needy from donated yarn. (It seems to be part of a large-scale project, but I’m not sure of the details.) There were balls of yarn big enough to make two blocks, and the group was looking for volunteers to pitch in. I decided to take a ball of blue and have some fun.

The only requirement was that each block be 7 inches by 9 inches. (Actually, they kept calling them 7 x 9 “squares,” and seemed to think I was awfully quaint for quibbling. Bloody mathematicians….) Since I’ve been working on the Mandalay Medallions sweater and had revived my crochet skills for the yoke and the edging, I decided to knit one block and crochet the other.

The knit block was inspired by the left-twist right-twist cables in Norah Gaughan’s Tilted Jacket, which I recently completed. The braid in the middle is a nine-stitch cable with a twist every four rows. It was knit on size 7 needles.

The crochet block is a variation on the Crochet Seed Stitch Flower Granny Square by Teresa. Here is a very rough outline of the modified center, minus the proper instructions for closing rounds and initial chains.

Ch4 center
1st round: 12 sc
2nd round: (1dc 1qc) in each sc
(“qc” = quadruple crochet--I’m sorry, but “double triple” is just wrong.)
3rd round: (1sc in next three st, ch5, skip 3 st) four times

After that, it mostly follows the original, except that in the next round (round 5 in the original), the middle 3dc in each side of the square is into the 3sc below instead of into a chain space.