In the spring of last year I had been talking to my mother about knitting, and we were sharing photos of things we liked. She saw a photo of an afghan on Flickr that she really liked and I noticed that the lady was nice enough to link to the pattern! I immediately set out to try to find some yarn that I could make it with!
It was a bit difficult as I hadn’t really bothered with specific types of yarn before, I’d just buy some and make something. This was special though, I had to get it just right! I found a great shop in a beautiful little village just south of here called De Schapekop where the ladies were incredibly helpful.
They helped me find the perfect yarn for this project! It’s called Drops Muskat and came in a wide variety of colors, which gave me a lot of options. I chose to go really colorful and bright, as the colors just made me feel happy and I hoped it’d do the same for mom.
The beginning of the process was making hundreds of these little circles. I made multiple sets of every possible color combination using the seven colors I had chosen. This got somewhat monotonous after a while but it wasn’t difficult, just time consuming.
I used a long knitting needle to hold them as I didn’t want them all over the place. I knew myself better than to think I wouldn’t end up losing one or two along the way.
This also made it easier for me when it came time to rearrange them, as I was sure that I had all of the colors where I needed them. I almost drove myself insane trying to make sure that the colors weren’t clustering too much!
Once I had the colors in the order I wanted them, they’d go back on the stick to wait to be assembled with the white yarn. This is when it really started to look like something!
The more the blanket started coming together, the more I loved it. I worked on it on and off from April – September 2010. This blanket really was a pleasure to make and I may even make one for myself at some point.
It was all totally worth it too, especially when I was in Canada and got to watch my mother open it! I was hopping in my seat waiting for her to get to my present. Which somehow got saved for last, so by the time she did open it I was practically squealing!
It lives here now, in my mother’s living room. Hopefully it will help keep her warm on some of the cold winter evenings and she will think of me! I was thinking of her every minute while I was working on it.
Love you mom!! xoxo
By the way, if you like this afghan or just enjoy crocheting with really vibrant happy colors, make sure to check out Attic 24, she has a lot of really awesome projects! I’ll definitely be making more of her stuff in the future.
Love your blanket please can tell me hoe big it was. As i am thinkoing of doing this pattern next
Sorry Anne, I actually didn’t measure it! :/ I kind of just kept going until it seemed a decent size.
Wow, that’s gorgeous. You are an artist! I don’t think I could even sew a button properly, let alone knit! (Since I’ve started speaking more Dutch and I read your posts, I always say k-nit, stupid, ha!).
I’m sure you could :) It’s not as hard as it looks. How is it going with the Dutch? Any idea when you’ll be moving this way?
that is so awesome! This makes me really want to pick up crochet…
Jules, you should! I find it really relaxing and there are a ton of tutorials online now. My mother taught me the basics and anything else I needed I looked up online and taught myself :)
Wow! That’s amazing! You have a really lucky mother.
Thanks Monica :) She’s the one that taught me to knit so it came back around for her!
Beautiful work! The combination of colours is lovely and it’s so neatly made!
I made a couple of blankets like this many years ago, with leftovers from all sorts of wool – some to donate and I think there’s still one at my mum’s place back in Argentina. :D
Happy New Year!!
Someday I’m going to make a blanket to donate. Only problem is I need to wait until I HAVE leftovers. Buying yarn here is so expensive, it’d be an expensive donation haha
It’s beautiful Tammy. I was lucky enough to get to see it in person before you took it with you to Cananda:) You are so talented!!
Thanks Sonya :) Now, the question is, how are YOU doing with your crocheting? :P