Students Knit World-Record-Chasing Blanket for Mandela’s Birthday

Students, teachers parents and others affiliated with a group of schools in South Africa set to knitting what they hope will be declared the world’s largest knit blanket in honor of Nelson Mandela’s 94th birthday.

In all 70,000 squares were knit (I see some crochet in there, too), measuring just shy of 1,192 square meters (just over 3,900 square feet). The squares were stitched into small blankets that were tacked together to make the larger blanket, assembled and displayed at the Curro Aurora Private School in Randburg. It’s estimated it took 240,000 hours to knit all the squares.

One the Guinness people have a look at the blanket it will be broken down into smaller pieces and donated to charities including Hope Zone, Zandspruit Crèche, Light House and Knit a Square. Portions will also be given to the school’s maintenance staff. What a wonderful way to celebrate the life and legacy of such an important man. You can check out more pictures here.

[Photo by Sammi-Jo Botha/the Randburg Sun.]

Next Pattern:

Using your yarn stash is important to me throughout the year, but as I start to feel the end of the year coming on I get more excited about using things I already have in the house. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to a store in the thick of holiday shopping times, or I like the idea of having a little space in my stash when the new year rolls around.

It’s super satisfying to use up all the little odd balls you’ve made over the year (or years), and I have several stash busting blankets I work on when it’s cold and will maybe finish someday.

If you’d like to start a stash busting project that’s perfect for using up odd balls, check out the Soukish pattern from Neisha Abdulla. This pattern is made for fingering weight/sock yarn, and it’s worked in a tube with allover color work.

This is great for a couple of reasons. You don’t really have to weave in your ends when you can hide them in a tube (this is one time you might even get by just tying a knot when you change colors!) and you can change colors whenever you run out of yarn and it will look good.

Of course the pattern is made with blocks where the designer changed colors, but you can change yours more or less often as you need to make it work for your stash. You can use blank charts to design your own color combinations, or even your own stitch patterns if you like. You can also adjust the length of the scarf as needed or turn it into a cowl based on the amount of yarn you have.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great thing to have on hand to stitch up and then to wear during the cold, gloomy months.

You can get a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla]

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Next Pattern:

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