Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Afghanery

When I first started knitting, after doing the requisite straight scarf and attempts at small glove and hat projects, I tackled an afghan project called Lover's Knot Afghan.  It was all cables.  It was really a beautiful pattern, and it was a great way to practice this knew found skill of mine (and cables) so.. i picked up some gray cotton yarn and set to.  (Turns out, gray yarn is perhaps not the best choice for this pattern, but oh well...its a soft yarn and I'll like it anyway.)  I got about 1 full repeat in (which is about 24 rows), maybe a little more, and then said "wow..this takes forever.. i wanna do more fulfilling projects I can actually finish!" and immediately dropped it onto some scrap yarn and buried it in my yarn drawer.

Two years later...

After slowing down on my knitting a lot, no longer racing through projects like there's no tomorrow, I'm looking at my pile of unfinished pieces and deciding what to work on.  I finished up the noro scarf - very pretty.  Frogged the sluagh Ipad bag - my first attempt at self designed fair island (also my first fair island bit.. probably should have done someone else's design first, huh?) did not go so well.  Looked at the two lace scarves I had started - one red one pink - and decided I wasn't in the mood for lace yet.  What else did I have out there?  Well, there was the lime green sweater I never finished... but the only stuff i have left on that is the difficult sleeve set ins, and I'm not ready to tackle that.  What about that afghan I put off way back when??  Dig around in my drawers and pull out this beautifully soft supple afghan bit and get to work.

I had to find the program I'd used to organize the rows (the two different block sets repeat at different rows, so you have to use some sort of marker to know which row your on for which pattern.. or write the pattern completely over as a 48-row-repeat rather than a 16-row and a 24-row repeat.  Its confusing.)  I then found a better version of the program and input it better.. making it easier.  And now I'm on row 62 or so, almost triple what I'd had set aside.  Its not going to be as wide an afghan as I might would have liked, but it'll be nice enough.  And the yarn is sooo nice, I think it'll be a great cuddle blanket.  It'll just take.. y'know.. forever..to finish.  But hey, tons and tons of cable practice!!


2 comments:

  1. It's gorgeous! And that cotton yarn doesn't hurt your hands?

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  2. My hands cramp after working too long on it when I first start it up after having not knitted recently, but its that way no matter what yarn I'm using. After a couple days of knitting again, my hands are used to it again. And I'm good to go. So no, I don't notice that cotton yarn is worse than others.

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