More colloquially, the Fisherman’s Sampler Afghan
Judy Gibson, January 1999

This is more of a plan of attack than a pattern. The afghan consists of several long strips, each of a single color, and each strip is a sampler of several similar traditional fisherman sweater patterns. Since the strips are rather narrow, each takes only a few balls of yarn, so this is a good way to use up odd balls and mismatched dye lots. As you’re knitting one strip at a time, it’s easy to carry around, and while it’s not exactly mindless knitting, it doesn’t take a lot of attention. When people ask you what you’re knitting, you can say what I did: “A long blue thing.” And if you put the strips together as you finish them, you’ll quickly have something warm to throw over your knees as you work.

The choice of colors, patterns, and the width and length of the strips is up to you. Choose yarns that knit to the same gauge. I used odd balls of worsted weight Woolease on size 8 needles, getting about 4 sts/in. in stockinette. I did the central strip with two fancy cable patterns in white (fisherman color), flanked by two green (green heather) strips with many samples of knit/purl gansey patterns, and on the outside, two blue (blue heather) strips each with two different Aran-style openwork and bobble patterns.

The strips are unified by a cable pattern along the edges where the strips are seamed together.

Old link: http://tiajudy.com/longblue.htm