Last week saw me finally complete 100 blocks of my Hue Shift afghan. Woohoo!
Love the color, love the pattern, love, Love, LOVE it.
Let me just say that last column was a study in tension and nerves of steel. I knew going into this project that yardage would be a bit of a mystery because I was using worsted and the pattern was written for sport or DK. All Ravelry research told me that no matter what you use, odds are that you’ll be waaay too close to the end of your skeins, which is why I went with Dream In Color for most of the colors — at 250 yds a skein, it was the best buy. Because I was trying to get a specific range between light and dark, I also used Madelinetosh Vintage (200 yds), Malabrigo Rios (210 yds) and Mrs. Crosby Steamer Trunk (165 yds HOLY CRAP ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!?) all of which I had to buy two skeins right at the start. I didn’t start weighing my skeins until after the 6th or 7th column but, as predicted, it was close.
Before the last row.
After the last row.
Despite my learning curve and the occasional effed up stitch, I’m a very happy camper with it. I debated quite a bit on whether or not to put a border on it but, in the end, adding a border won out for the very practical reason that I wish the afghan was just a bit bigger. I figured a two inch border should do the trick.
Unfortunately, there’s always a hiccup in the plan, and this hiccup was that I don’t like the look of the border the pattern tells you to use. I wanted a simple mitred corner garter stitch border. How hard was that really?
Yeeeeaaaah. Turns out, it’s harder than you’d think when you start trying to figure out the mechanics of it. Remember, garter stitch requires you to turn your project over and go the other way. Try as I might, I couldn’t suss out how to make this work the way I wanted it to. But folks, Google and TECHknitter — bless her awesome heart! — is your friend. She knew there’d knitters like me searching for how to knit garter stitch in the round and she points us to this post by Fleegle wherein I could find the easy answer to the very problem that stymied me:
Use two skeins.
I am gobsmacked by it’s simplicity and, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you it works like a charm. Absolutely BRILLIANT. Which is good that it’s easy, because after picking up 1,000 stitches for the border, it currently takes me a bit over an hour and a half to get around this afghan ONCE. Which means 3.5 hours for a single garter ridge. Which, given that my gauge here is 1″ = 6 ridges, translates to 39 straight hours of fun and frolic.
I think I’ll be at this for a very long time.
Edited to add: I’ve culled some interesting resource bits and pieces on garter stitch edges, and thought it might be useful to list them here — at least until the links break.
Knitting a [blanket] border I’m in love with the Rachael Rabbit’s Continuous Cable Border Pattern, listed here.
My Blankets & Borders & Colors Pinterest board is great place to find ideas and inspiration for both borders and blankets.
Recent Comments