My kids were 7 and 9 (or maybe 6 and 8 - not sure if it was before or after their birthdays in May.) We spent a lot of time at the library. I was doing a lot of quilting at the time and not much reading, so I would browse the quilting books while the kids did their thing. Unfortunately - or fortunately - they didn't have many and I went through them pretty quickly. Then I started looking around at the other books in the same area. They didn't have many knitting books either, but they did have Barabara Walkers Learn to Knit Afghan book. I learned to knit as a child, but gave it up after a disaster involving scratchy aran weight yarn, a sweater pattern, and absolutely no clue about gauge.I checked the book out, ordered some yarn, and so began my adventure with this awesome craft. Luckily I choose a very soft, beautiful yarn - Aurora 8 - mostly because it came in lots of colors and was washable. It was like knitting with clouds. As the squares became more and more difficult, I learned about increasing and decreasing, lace and colorwork, cables and twisted stitches. Oddly enough, I didn't make it to the short row square that was the basis for my Lizard Ridge pattern.
I wanted to make DD an afghan out of Kureyon to take to college. She loves Kureyon, and I thought if I used a bunch of different colors it would serve as her own personal color card. I started looking for a pattern but couldn't find anything that really made good use of the long color runs. I saw entrelac and mitered squares. but I wanted something different. I was flipping through my copy of Barbara's book (a gift from DH) and started looking at that short row block. I had some ideas about changing the color arrangement, came up with this on my first try!
I remember steaming it on the ironing board and thinking "I am onto something here!" My intention was to make a block every now and then as I came across new colorways, but next thing I know, I'm scouring the internet and yarn shops, snatching up skeins right and left, and knitting like a square a day! Needless to say, it was done way before she left for college, so it was her 16th birthday present instead!Now for some more recent stuff -
More coasters for another knitting friend -
And I finished Maia - it's gorgeous. Wonderful pattern. Wonderful yarn.
Bigger and more pics on Ravelry. Uploading them here is kind of a pain :oP In other news, I finished the second quarter in the green (i.e. more stash out than in) but will be in the red soon for this quarter - lots of yarn coming in. Hopefully I will get back in the green pretty quickly. I have 2 projects almost done and lots more knitting planned.
