Knitting mitered squares

For the past three days I have been attempting to teach myself how to knit mitered squares per instructions from Melody Johnson of Fibermania. She knits the most wonderful neck warmers and hats using these mitered squares. The square itself is fairly easy to knit, although I need to write out row by row instructions on Excel so that I can keep track of where I am in the process. The difficulty for me was in adding the next square - picking up stitches along the left edge and adding 12 more stitches. For the experienced knitter, this is easy I suppose. But for the inexperienced knitter, the task is daunting as all the instruction books I have do not address this particular task. I searched books, I searched Google, I looked at endless YouTube videos, and I spent way too much time trying to get it. Finally, I was successful. However, the tweed-like yarn makes it almost impossible to see what I did - and there is one mistake buried in the middle.

(If you click on my pictures you can see a larger image)

Below is a close-up of the first completed mitered square, although the miter along the middle doesn't show up too well with this yarn.

The second square added to the first (below) looks like a mess because of the tweed yarn, but I guarantee it is correct. And the joining of the two squares doesn't look too bad for a beginner.

I'm through though. I have other more pressing things to do, and I just have to stop fiddling with these mitered squares. I'm putting the knitting away for know and will attend to the laundry and some quilty things.