Six Hour Afghan

I started this 6 hour afghan from Lion Brand something like 3 months ago. No, I haven't been working on it for 3 months straight. In fact, I was nearly done with it and then I put it down for 6 weeks because I was bored and moved onto sewing. I was also discouraged that the pattern did not make this nearly as wide as I like in an afghan. (I am also not particularly fond of the word afghan but I'll use it a lot in this post.) I thought I could knit 2 and stitch them together. That really discouraged me, considering I was nearly done. Well, I've abandoned knitting a second blanket and will just use this as a smaller throw. It's a one person blanket. No cuddling on the couch. Except maybe with Sadie. She'll find herself a corner of blanket anywhere.

This pattern required the purchase of Speed Stix. Have I shown you these? It seems vaguely familiar. Well, here they are again! OK, scratch that. I haven't uploaded them from my camera yet. Just know that they're GIANT knitting needles. That's what was supposed to help make this a six hour project. Silly Lion Brand.

This pattern, while labeled Beginner, also allowed me to learn a new skill: sewing with multiple skeins of yarn at one time. In this case, it was four. I used Lion Brand's Homespun yarn (super soft!) in Cream (two skeins), Earth (which is brown, duh), and Sierra (kind of a marbling of the other two plus some burnt orange). I was going for muted tones since I plan on leaving this over the back of the chaise in my living room. Originally it was going to be all cream but I quickly decided against that thinking it might be a bit difficult.

Anyway, here it is! I really like how it turned out. It's very cozy, which is what I wanted. And just slightly narrow.



Mad Skillz Mastered: knitting with multiple strands

Yarn Used: Lion Brand Homespun

Cost: Speed stix $8.00 (with coupon)
Yarn $35.00 (normally $5.99/skein but it was on sale and I had coupons, 8 skeins total)
Pattern FREE!

Total: $43.00 - so those of you questioning whether knitting is cheaper than buying? No, sometimes it's not. But, this project wasn't really about saving money for me. And now I have the speed stix if I feel like making this one again.

Grade: A+ ...... even though it was narrower than I wanted, I followed the pattern to a T, didn't drop any stitches, and have a completely usable afghan. Winner winner chicken dinner!