Which square will become a blanket?

My next project is going to be a lap blanket for my 80 year old mother in law.  She seems to always be cold and I asked her if she would like for me to make her a blanket and she said yes.  She's not the crafty type so I have not done much knitting for her.  But I will love to make her a blanket to use while she sits in her favorite chair.  I know it needs to be washable so I have thought a lot about what I want for her.  I thought I wanted superwash wool or cotton so I went to a quilt shop in town that just started carrying knitting supplies.  

I found some nice cotton - Fantasy Naturale.  They didn't have many colors to choose from so I picked six that I thought would go fairly well together.  I thought I might make a log cabin blanket as made very popular by those Mason Dixon gals.  I thought I would make small squares with three colors each like this blanket.  Or I could try the Cranberry Island blanket in the newest Interweave Knits magazine.

And then the day after buying the cotton yarn, I went to JoAnn’s and found several options for machine washable yarns.  I really wanted to stay away from acrylic yarns but I found Bernat’s Mosiac and knew it would be perfect.  I had thoughts of making a Barn Raising Quilt but then I saw this version of the log cabin quilt and decided I might knit up a square from each and see which I liked best.

So here are the four squares that I knitted.  I carried them around with me, asking several people which they liked best.  And of course, I got several different answers.  But I think I am going to go with the cotton log cabin (the one with the white edging in the photo).  My sister loved the Cranberry Island square and I loved the unusual construction.  I also love the Barn Raising Quilt square and I will work on a few more squares as it is an easy project to carry around.  It would be a perfect gift for my niece Lily.  But for my mother in law it will be a log cabin blanket from the Fantasy Naturale.