I can’t believe I’m doing another afghan! But my friend, Teri (aka Tink) introduced me to this one as we sat together at a craft event at the Honolulu Academny of Arts one Sunday afternoon.

I helped her crochet borders around some of the squares of her afghan which she had recently completed. She let me borrow the book for a bit, and the rest is history.

I decided to do this project because, while I see myself as primarily a crocheter, I do know how to knit, and I thought this would be a cool way to broaden my skill set. Plus, the squares are small and varied enough that I won’t keep saying to myself as I work on it, “I can’t wait till this is done!”

I know knitters seem to prefer wool, but, I can’t help it; I’m addicted to Red Heart acrylic yarn, especially given that this will be a functional blanket that I will need to wash often. I just can’t see myself hand washing it and waiting days for it to dry flat.

Anyway, as you can see, I’m on my 7th square (thought it was 6 for some reason) in the knit-purl set. I’ll add photos from each set as I complete them, so stay tuned.

12-1-08
You won’t believe what I just did. Posted this project a second time. Must be all that holiday “cheer” I’ve been embibing. But at least I now know how to delete a project.

Ok, I am 2 squares away from finishing the Mosaic Group of patterns. I took a long break, but decided to get back into it again. I’m looking forward to the next group, Slip Stitch Patterns, although I’m not sure how they differ from the mosaics since I’ve been slipping stitches left and right.

I must say though that I’m amazed at the wonderful designs that can be created with this fairly easy technique. Most of these squares use garter stitch, but a few are made with stockinette (see the curled edges).

3/2/09
I finished my last “twisted stitch” block last night; so I am half way there! Those twisted stitches were a b&?h! I made at least one mistake in one of the blocks, but after starting over on several blocks at least a dozen times (or so it feels like I did), I wasn’t going to do it again. It’s hardly noticeable. Bet you can’t find it!! ((Hmm … looks like I messed up on two squares now that I’m looking at them … oh well)

6/5/09
Here it is, the beginning of June, and I have just finished the last 4 groups -- Increase-Decrease; Cable, Lace, and Special Techniques. I decided that this is going to be a gift for a cousin who is turning 80 in July. I can’t make the b-day party in Wisconsin, so I decided she might appreciate an afghan.

I enjoyed doing the increase-decrease group; the cable group was hard on my hands. I had the most trouble with the lace group -- because of all the yarn-overs; and the special techniques group because some of the instructions just weren’t very clear and I had to do a lot of experimentation before I got the instruction correct.

Now comes crocheting the borders, and for the life of me, I can’t decide on a color. I’ve tried various shades of green which is supposed to compliment yellow, but just can’t find the right shade or hue in the selection of Red Heart yarn my yarn store carries. I’ve also looked at orange, the yellow used in the squares, hot pink (doesn’t go with the purple very well), teal (I don’t like the RH version of this color, and on and on.

Next time I post, I’ll have a photo of the completed afghan. I’ve got about 2 weeks to finish before I have to send it.

7/11/09

It’s D-O-N-E DONE! Actually, I completed it the last week of June and sent it to my cuz in Milwaukee for her 80th b-day. Couldn’t figure out what color to use for the square borders, so my daughter colored the chart I created so I could figure out how to place the squares for sewing. We decided to use purple and yellow for the square borders in a pattern that I hope is visible from the photo. Then I crocheted a purple border around the whole piece.

I thought I’d have a problem piecing the squares together because they varied in size, but crocheting around the borders actually helped in blocking the squares (acrylic yarn so regular blocking wouldn’t work). I made sure I crocheted 23 stitches around each side. But one or two squares turned out REALLY big, and you can tell because they don’t lay flat. Oh well … sure wasn’t going to re-knit them.

Anyway, I’m glad it’s finally done. Now back to crocheting.