Aran Afghan

Project Stats
Pattern:Great American Aran Afghan, Falling Leaves  Started:7/12/2003 
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease  Completed: 
Needles: Various, straight     
Update: This project is now part of the sampler afghan-a-long. Join us!
Finished Squares: (click a thumbnail to see the block!)

Afghan Square 1

When I started the living room redecorating project, I wanted to make a nice throw to go over the back of the couch. I bought tons of yarn, and the pattern for the falling leaves afghan. I knitted four squares, sewed them together, and promptly stuffed the whole thing in the closet.

I do really like the pattern, but I think it might have been quite boring to knit several dozen more of those little six-inch squares!

Afghan Book

Just recently I found this book - there's even a square which has a miniature aran sweater sewn on it! Amazingly enough, the finished sizes of the squares is just about exactly the size of my finished four-patch of leaves. With blocking, it ought to be just about perfect! And if not, I can always use the leaf square as a pillow!

While working on the first square, I have discovered that you really don't need a cable needle, except for the biggest, most complicated cables - all I do is drop the stitches off (on purpose!) and rearrange them in the order they need to be knitted in...keeping in mind that they need to cross in a certain direction.

 
 
Block 1 - 7/23/03

The first completed square out of this book. It ended up 12 1/2" square instead of 12"...don't quite know why, since my gauge swatch was dead on. But I imagine the rest of the squares will probably be off by a little bit, too, and blocking can work miracles!

 
 
Block 2 - 8/6/03

This square reminds me of my Great-Grandmother. I think maybe she had a pillow on her couch that looked something like this, although I'm not sure. Whatever the reason, it made me think of her while I made it! Because this one was done on circular needles, it's actually even a little bigger than the first block. I think I knit looser on circulars than I do on straights.

 
 
Block 3 - 11/10/03

My favorite part of this block is the center panel. I really like cables that are this sort of style! This block was more complicated than I expected, because the cables that are supposed to look sort of like a DNA strand had crossed stitches on the back, as well as the front. I really hope that blocking takes care of the wavy garter stitch on the top and bottom borders!

Block 4 - 3/7/04

This block was definitely not as challenging as the other blocks so far, and it shows - it sat half-finished on the needles for a few months! I do like how it came out, but I think the center panel could have been started or ended on a different row so that it was more symmetrical. Oh, well, it is just an afghan after all!

Block 5 - 4/12/04

I adore this block! I think it's such a cute idea to have a miniature sweater on an afghan square, and I think it would be a very fun project to make an entire afghan with miniatures of the very favorite sweaters that I've made. Someday!

Block 6 - 1/22/06

Yeah. I know. It's been a long time since I worked on this project. At the rate I'm going - I'm averaging a square every 5 months - it will be another 4 years or so until the squares are done. Anyway, since I figured it would take a few weeks to do this square, the hearts were really appropriate for Valentine's Day. Turned out it went much faster than I expected. Better cast on for the next one now!