Red Purl Afghan KAL: February

Today was the second meetup of the afghan KAL. Attendance, if anything, was even higher than last month. There were some new faces, but mostly repeat knitters. I am getting to know a few names, and faces, and even matching some of them up.

Amy did not use my design this month. I had signed up for February just because it looked like no one else was. (It did mean you had to move pretty fast as the design was due the first of the month.) Although Amy said she liked the design, she thought it was too hard. Or more accurately, her words were, "too technical." I guess I'm not a good judge of hard and easy because it's all knit and purls to me.

Anyway, this month's design was very nice. And let me add, it gave me yet another opportunity to put my foot in my mouth. You see, on Thursday I was in the shop to order some colours for the rest of the afghan (and just to visit) and said quite firmly that I do not like bobbles. "I am not a bobble person!" I believe was my bald-faced declaration. Well, I walk into the shop this afternoon and get my pattern off of the counter and see that it is solid bobbles from east to west and north to south. Amy just gave me a "whatcha-gonna-do?" look and laughed. But the all-over pattern is very lovely. And it's perfect in the "Blue Surf" colour I'm using for it. I really like it.

This is of course a life lesson for me; something about being open to new things you think you don't like. Or maybe I just had never seen a good bobble pattern. (The very observant of you will point out that there are bobbles on the super bulky yellow sweater I wanted to do, and you would be right. But I wasn't crazy about them there either; just willing to go along with them.)

The back of the design even looks good, although completely different. If I had to do a matching test, I would have never put these two together.

And I think the blue and orange play well together. (The orange really isn't as bright as it looks in this picture.)

This square will have to be blocked to the 12 inch size. It wants to pull in to 11 inches, and this is even after I increased the number of pattern repeats by two. (Amy's sample really pulled in so it was a good indication of how much to add.) But a little blocking will fix that right up. Unlike last month, I will not finish the block tonight, but I did get it to about 10 inches. Pretty good for a day's work.

Going to bed where I'll dream of finding a way to knit while sleeping,

christina