This is not just an afghan from Afghans by the Alphabet, it’s the cover afghan. So you can compare my result to the professional product.

I handed my friend Sheila all my afghan books and told her to pick out what she wanted. She picked this one. I told her she could have different colors, but she wanted the ones in the picture. I told her there was a lot of yarn in this particular pattern and she offered to pay for it. That wasn’t what I meant, especially since the yarn shown was Red Heart Super Saver so it cost practically nothing. What I meant was a) it would be heavy and b) it would be a lot of work.

Even though she’d said she wanted the yarn in the picture I spent a lot of time looking for an alternative. I’ve worked with Painted Desert before and it didn’t look like the picture to me. I thought they must have gotten a more vivid dye lot or they were wrong about what they’d used. I was afraid if I made it as specified, Sheila would be disappointed. Finally, not having come up with a color combination I liked better, I did a swatch. It looked just like the picture. Guess I should have trusted the book to begin with. The reason the variegated comes out more vivid than it seems on the skein is that the black is constantly running behind it, deepening the tones. That’s why it uses so much yarn too. There are essentially two rows for every row you can see.

What’s not clear from the photo, and which surprised me, is that it’s a flat afghan. There’s no texture at all. The variegated grid isn’t over the black squares; it’s an integral part of the fabric. The effect is striking.

I really love how this came out, although it seemed to take forever and I was glad to have it done. The only downside is that it’s one of those afghans that doesn’t reverse at all. The back is a completely different afghan – very modern art and moody, almost African. Kind of cool in it’s own way.

This came from a leaflet called Snuggle-Up Baby Afghans. It’s the one with the blue and pink stirpes. I’ve got a couple of upcoming babies and at least one is a boy, so I decided to use all blue. This is a very bright blue for a baby but I like it. They say babies respond better to bright colors so why do we make everything for them out of pastels?

I debated whether or not to add the fringe, I suppose because I don’t really enjoy making fringe, but the waffle texture and stripes made it look a little too much like a dishrag without the fringe. It’s funny how I consider finishing tasks like weaving in ends and adding fringe to be work but crocheting to be fun. The motion for adding fringe is almost exactly the same as for rug hooking, so if I were a rug hooker, that’s what I’d be doing all along and I suppose I’d think it was fun then. Actually, I started a rug once but never finished it, so maybe I just really don’t like that hooking motion!

I’m not very good at getting the fringe all trimmed up evenly and usually end up feeling like I cut it three times and it’s still too short but Todd is concerned that a baby could choke on fringe if it were too long so in this case short fringe isn’t a bad thing (not that I’ve ever heard of a baby fringe choking incident).

The third afghan I made from A Year of Afghans, Book 5. This one was for Todd’s bedroom, so he got to pick the pattern and the yarn. We bought samples of a couple of different kinds of yarn and I made swatches. Once he decided on this one we went back to get enough to finish the afghan only to find out . . . there wasn’t enough! Apparently this color (Fiesta Jewel) was in the process of being discontinued. There followed trips to every craft store within striking distance of either his house or mine and we finally gathered up enough skeins of yarn (plus a few extra as it turned out) only to run into problem number two: it was dye-lotted. Now Red Heart yarn is normally not dye-lotted so I didn’t even think about it but I guess their variegated yarns are. It became obvious when we put all our skeins from all the different stores next to each other that they didn’t match.

It turned out OK, as you can see. I used the closest matches and the fact that this afghan is made with two strands helped blend any minor differences in. But then I started using the leftover yarn to make scarves and such and I keep having to remember to use close matches or stick to projects that only need one skein because in a flat single strand pattern it can sure be obvious where I switched skeins.

Problem number three was that something about this pattern hurt my fingers. I was really glad to get this one done.

I should have been an invalid in the 1800s. I’m crazy for having a lap robe on at all times. It’s like I can’t really be comfortable without my shoes off and a blanket on my lap. So any room I spend a lot of time in ends up with an afghan. This one was for my room at Todd’s house. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the open weave keeps it from being as warm as I might like sometimes.

This is another pattern from A Year of Afghans Book 5. Actually, it was the first one I made from that book. I made this from Red Heart’s TLC yarn. I generally stick to plain old Red Heart – the really cheap stuff – but I wanted this afghan to be softer, which it is. Maybe someday I’ll have enough faith in my work to spend the money on some really nice yarn.

I used to have a freebie blanket in a blue/green/white tartan plaid from Microsoft. I liked the colors but it said “Microsoft” in one corner and it had gotten grungy and had a cigarette burn hole in it. When I quit smoking I decided to toss it and make myself a new blanket. This crochet pattern came from A Year of Afghans Book 5 which I’ve gotten several afghans out of. It’s the pattern called “Windowpane Wrap.” The pattern called for a very different color scheme with white as the dominant color and a series of pastels alternating for the underlying colors. I changed it to match my old blue/green/white scheme and am very happy with the result.

This was my first attempt at a crocheted afghan. I selected a stitch I liked from 101 Stitches for Afghans and started crocheting. After a while I got bored and left it aside for months while I worked on other things. When I came back to it, I was a better crocheter. That wasn’t such a good thing. My tension had completely changed and the end result was a not-very-square afghan. I still like the colors and pattern but I keep it rolled up so you can’t see how wavy the sides are.