afghans for babies

Continuing with the theme of afghans, I want to show some afghans I made for baby gifts. And speaking of Doctor Who, this afghan that I made in 2005 best represents the colors of the Doctor Who scarves. I must not have been able to fit all of these colors into the afghan I made for our living room.

Unfortunately, I do not have a photo of this creation. It is based on a picture I saw in one of the Vogue Knitting on the Go baby books. Below is a photo of the notes I made for it. You can see that is was square, 35" x 35". The outside was 2 rows of squares with a square of contrasting color in the center. The inside portion was 12 row stripes. I knit it in one piece in stockinette stitch. There was a garter stitch border around the outside.

The good thing about this afghan was the richness and sophistication of the colors for a baby afghan. The bad thing was the blocking, or lack thereof. It would have worked better in wool. As it was, I was not able to get it to lay perfectly square and flat. Also, I picked up the garter stitch border after the main portion was knitted, and I did not pick up the correct number of stitches. It tended to flare. I think that means I picked up too many stitches. I am embarrassed to admit that I did not redo it, as the baby shower was upon me.

The next afghan, actually made 6 months earlier than the one above, was not finished in time for the shower, but I was able to show off the pieces. It is the fish afghan from Knitters magazine, Summer 1998 issue. It also appears in Baby and Toddlers: A Knitters Dozen. There are many examples of the finished afghan in Ravelry.

I also failed to take a photo of this finished project. I guess I did not have a digital camera yet. Here is the afghan as it appeared in the magazine:

It was particularly apt for my pregnant friend, because she loves fishies. Note that the designer of this piece chose to make it in 2 colors. I chose to make in 4 related colors in my favorite color combination of blue and green, using Lion Brand Wool Ease. Here is a photo of the yarn I used and some notes showing how I alternated the colors in rows. My daughter, who is good at math, helped me to work out the color sequence.
If you check out the photos in Ravelry, you will see that this afghan is considered to be a good scrap afghan, because so many people who made it used a variety of colors, a different color for each fish. I like the results better in the restricted sequence of colors I used. I think it looks more harmonious. With many blocks of unrelated colors, it is hard to know where to rest your eye. The Wool Ease yarn also worked well for this project. It is soft, and while not entirely blockable, it blocked some. Sewing the fish together (I think I used matress stitch, not crochet) put them under a tension that made them hold their shape.

afghans I have known

On Monday of this week I blogged about my beloved Doctor Who afghan. It got me to thinking about other afghans in my life. Here is the swatch from the one I made for my daughter and son-in-law when they moved into their new house.The pattern I used is the bottom stripes of the scanned swatch (above). I used the Garter Stitch Chevron pattern from the Harmony Guide. Isn't this a crummy-looking looking scan? You may or may not be able to read my notes indicating that I cast 232 stitches onto a #8 (US) circular needle. I knit the afghan back and forth horizontially over a finished width of 48" and to a finished length of 60". For myself, I would have made a bigger afghan, but my daughter wanted it fairly wide, but not too long.

As the swatch scan indicates, the stitch pattern made a lovely sawtooth border for itself, so an edging was not required. The finished afghan is pretty - kind of girly in its wavy pattern, but manly in its coloring.

The tan and brown shades of the Lion Brand Wool Ease I used coordinate with the caramel walls and darkish green upholstery in the family room with its big-screen tv. The room is much-used but chilly, so the afghan has come in handy. I used Wool Ease because of its washability, but it worked well for this in general. It is very soft.

I love chevron and ripple patterns. I have the Jan Eaton Ripple Patterns book, but what else can you do with ripple paterns besides afghans? I would love to hear some other ideas from you.

doctor who revisited

In 2002 or 2003, to please a new boyfriend, my daughter made three massively huge Doctor Who scarves. She carefully chose the colors of acrylic yarn (two were similarly muted and one was all reds and purples) and got very busy, working on the scarves while watching TV at night. I was jealous that she had a project to work on so I took up knitting again and became Obsessed With Knitting. The rest is history.

Anyway, I got tired of having the acrylic leftovers in my natural-fibered knitting room, so I took them up and made an afghan out of them. I used a tweed stitch from one of the Harmony Guides . It goes K1, slip1 with yarn in front as if to purl. Even numbered rows are all purl. The knits and slips are offset: the 2nd right side row goes K2, slip 1. I changed colors every 2 rows, so I could use up the Doctor Whos.

It took a long time to make with worsted weight yarn and #7 (US) circular needles. It wasn't finished until 2006. I was thrilled with the result, and it was machine washable:

After seeing this afghan for a while, I began to think that I was a genius at combining colors. A color combination I like is green and blue, so I thought to use more leftovers and make a green and blue afghan. Since finishing the first afghan I had learned to crochet, so I decided to crochet this one in a ripple stitch. I used all sorts of greens and blues with purples for contrast. The result was garish and wrong:

What happened to my color combining genius? Out the window. I did learn something from this fiasco, however. One, do not use the ripple stitch in crochet, especially in stripes. I had made a section like this where the colors were good together by accident and made it into a scarf, but that was a fluke. Two, in combining blues and greens, severely edit the colors.

In my next attempt at the blue and green afghan, I plan to use the richer, deeper colors on the top and eliminate the lighter, muddier colors on the bottom. I'll also go back to my trusty tweed stitch, which I seem to be using for everything lately.

I just finished a scarf in this stitch pattern, and last year I made two men's sweaters in it. Today in Ravelry I spotted a fabulous Jean Frost jacket in a three color version of it that I immediately put into my queue. So more on the tweed stitch in the future.