Nonlinear equations

On days like today I wonder how I managed to keep up the pace I did in past years. I used to host a football coach's show, which meant that for ten Saturdays in the fall I went to the team's games. Home games meant slightly shorter days, although my work commitment with the TV station had me there a few hours early and about an hour afterward. Road games were almost always all day affairs that followed work on Friday night for a high school game. Fall weekends were not times for catching my breath.

A couple years ago I handed most of the show's responsibilities to a student. I wanted more time to wind down and found that I needed it. To bring in some extra bucks I'm still the official statistician for home games, but this only takes a few hours out of five Saturdays...usually. It's not so bad, especially since this fall my Friday nights are free for a change. (We're handling production of the high school games in a way that doesn't require my presence.) I actually have a weekend. Hallelujah.

After years of fall Fridays and Saturdays being busy, slow weekends are appreciated. I took an early afternoon nap that culminated in a feeling that was like shaking off the rust of a thousand years. Then I turned to knitting for a significant portion of today's remaining hours. If I would have dug out a jacket to stave off the chill in the air, I might have knit outside on my west balcony. (That's where I snapped the picture at the top of this post.) Instead I situated myself in front of the television.

The Asherton Reversible Scarf is about two repeats from completion. I will be proud to send it to the people at the Red Scarf Project, and I will be glad to have it finished. I couldn't be happier with how it looks, but I'm beginning to get a little tired of constantly checking the pattern. I'm ready for some mindless knitting.

I'm thinking of making the diagonal baby blanket but want to adapt the pattern so it's bigger. Unlike the two previous times I've knit it, the intended recipient isn't a baby (or its parents). I've been trying to calculate the math out loud and scribbled measurements utilizing the Pythagorean theorem, but I'm having trouble determining how many stitches I'd need to make it 48"x48" or 60"x60". What would be a "proper" size for adults?

9 stitches and 18 rows=4 inches. The pattern increases to 126 stitches for a 36" square blanket. Apparently I am unable to summon my algebraic powers to compute the number of stitches. What's the easy answer and formula I'm not seeing?