Gone to the dogs

My friend (and roommate from college) Beth, who lives in Springfield, Missouri, is involved in an effort to get local knitters to create "papipads" (I think they are named after a dog named Papi) for the Southwest Missouri Humane Society. These are little blankets that line the dogs' cages, and when the dogs are adopted they take the blankets (by them familiar items) with them to their news homes. Beth somehow (got) volunteered to make eight papipads, one for each branch of the county library. The papipads will be display samples, and Beth is working with kniters' groups (including the library young adult social group) to make blankets.

I told her I'd help her out by making one of the samples for her. I'm using Red Heart worsted-weight acrylic ($2.19 at my friendly neighborhood A. C. Moore!), and I think it'll work out to about one 364-yard skein, plus a bit of a second skein--so somewhere around 425 yards total (the yarn is doubled throughout), I'm guessing. I started with an all-red blanket and size 11 needles, but my knitting is too tight to meet the size requirements. So now I'm working on this striped number with size 13 needles. It's mindless (in that I don't have to pay attention to shaping or changing stitches or anything) knitting that goes pretty fast--and fun, too, 'cause I can switch colors whenever I feel like it! Maybe I'll make a second papipad (I'll certainly have enough yarn for it!) with some intarsia in it! Oooh!

Here's the pattern for the papipad, if anyone reading this is interested in helping out. The address where it should go is at the bottom of the page. I'm sure the dogs would appreciate your efforts!