Mom's knitting

I taught my Mom to knit not too long ago. She saw me and DD doing it and thought it looked like fun. Previously, she has done cross-stitching and some sketching, hand-sewn hems and such, but no other crafting that I know of.

Here is her second piece of knitting ever:

This is much better than the first one, which we frogged to start over.

It's getting much better in the last couple of inches. Before that there are a bunch of unintentional short rows (on each side, so they actually kind of even out), and I don't quite know how she ends up with those orphan stitches at the margins, hanging out there on their lonesome, all forlorn. Her habit of putting it down before she's reached the end of the row must have something to do with it. She's very pleased that this has only increased by one stitch since the cast-on (NOT like last time, when it just grew and grew and grew), although those poor orphan stitches obviously have something to do with that.

What to encourage her to make when this is done? We can only knit this poor yarn so many times (it is already suffering). It's a nice coloring and actually pretty nice for acrylic yarn (at least in my experience), but it's starting to get more and more splitty.

What's a good project for a very new knitter who has barely grasped the knit stitch (let alone the purl stitch)? A garter stitch scarf, I suppose, I hate to get into increases and decreases. Perhaps garter stitch squares for a blanket. Hmmm.