The Prog Blanket

So to start off talking about my knitting I thought I would write about my first knitting project, The Prog Blanket. My partner's mother gave me some needles and yarn and set me off on plain garter stitch. I made my first garter stitch square and decreed that I would make a blanket. I cannot tell you the name of the yarn I used, it was both nameless and acrylic and I thought it was wonderfully soft. I have come a long way in yarn snobbery since then! So I made a few garter stitch squares, then a few stockinette squares, then ribbed. Did I take into account that ribbing pulls the knitting in making it smaller width-wise? Of course not.
I continued making squares, experimenting with stitch patterns from magazines and books my partner's mother lent me, till I thought I had enough to make a decent sized blanket. (Till I got bored of making squares!) So then came the time to sew them together.....and I find I hate sewing knitting! Apparently not an uncommon hatred amongst knitters. So I put off doing it, and put off doing it, and tried to farm it out to my mother to sew up. She put off doing it too.
I think about a year went by and my partner kept asking about the blanket. He had taken a shine to the thought of a patchwork blanket. I had a blanket on the couch, the cats had a blanket on the couch. He wanted one. It would be his "Prog Blanket".
I think an explanation is due here. My partner collects records, lots of them. He has three book cases full in the living room and several boxes in cupboards and the spare room. (I can't complain because of the size of my yarn stash!) He likes several music genres, but his favourite is progressive rock, or Prog Rock as it is known. Hence the Prog Blanket. So I took the bull by the horns and sewed the squares together.
It actually looked good for about all of five minutes or so. My partner thought it was great, heaped praises on me, and then made the mistake of showing it to the cats. They thought it was great too. They still do, at the moment it is lining a cardboard box that one of our cats, Lenoir, has decided is hers.

Yes, I know, we spoil our cats.