the blanket

We made a blanket for Roger. A knitted gift. From his devoted class of 16 children aged 11 and 12 years whom he had taught for 6 years.
In August a box arrived from Peace Fleece containing 22 balls of yarn. That's 4400 yards (4026 metres).

I knit up a sample piece to inspire the children.

The "knitting bees" began; mostly Saturday mornings and some after school. It was such a joy sitting knitting with these young people, who obviously loved and respected their teacher so much.

There was lots of chatting, including coming to the realisation that Roger wouldn't be their teacher for very much longer. The making of this blanket was a healing, a transition process,  an act of love and gratitude. Appoximately  242,000 stitches worth.

We ended up with 35 squares to somehow fit together, and after arranging the squares in strips of similar size,  ended up having to knit a few extra squares to make it all fit properly.

We also had to consider the squares which spelled out his name, Roger!

I then joined my circular needle cables together from my addi click set and cast on stitches along one edge at a time and knit a 14 row garter stitch edging, alternating grey and colour rows.
Finished 5pm on the night of the graduation party and presented to their beloved teacher, who was pretty overwhelmed.

 He said: "I will treasure it forever"