We had a lovely, quiet Christmas.  Myria cooked a feast that started with a baked ham, all sweet, smoky tenderness - and it just got better from there!  I gave her perfume; she gave me yarn - we were both happy :)

I have been thinking about an afghans (or a couple of them) for quite a while now.  What has stopped me is the fact that I don’t tend to do well with big projects.  Once I’ve figured out the pattern I get bored.  Well, I finally realized that my burgeoning stash was beginning getting a bit out of control (I even have some yarn in the kitchen) and that one storage area contained nothing but Red Heart Supersaver yarn.  Old Red Heart that I had purchased 6 or 7 years ago for - guess what?  Afghans!  And it occurred to me that if I could use up that stash of yarn, I could clear quite a bit of storage space and have a new blanket into the bargain!

So I looked around for a while and finally settled on Priscilla Hewitt’s beautiful, crocheted Skipping Stones Circular Afghan.  I really liked the pattern but worried that a round afghan might not be so useful.  However, Myria seemed to think it was a pretty cool idea and that the shape would make it all the easier to wrap up in - so off I went.

I went through my various storage areas and found that my Red Heart acrylic seemed to divide itself evenly into pink/rose/wine shades and random colors.  Well, okay - maybe there’ll have to be two afghans to use this stuff up.  I gathered all the pink/rose/wine stuff and went to work. As the pattern specified a double strand of yarn and a large hook, I figured this wouldn’t take any time :)

Now, see in the pattern where it says “hook size N”? I thought that was ridiculous and started with a size K hook instead.  I should have known something was wrong when I read in the pattern that rows 1, 2 and 3 should give me a piece about 3” in diameter.  What I had wasn’t even close.  Never the less, I persevered until I had a round piece that was…erm…pretty dense.  Thermonuclearly dense.  It could stand up by itself and I’m pretty sure it was bullet proof.  Sigh…

So I took it all out and started over again with the recommended hook.  That hook took a while to get used to as I’ve never worked with anything quite that size before (honestly, I’m happiest in the F - H range).  For a while I had to do every treble twice - once to screw up and once for real - until I got the hang of manipulating the size N hook from hell!  Nah, it wasn’t that bad - just a matter of adjustment.

At 11:36 PM, New Year’s Eve, this is what I had…

I messed with the pattern to the extent that I used multiple colors instead of only one, and I added another section to the afghan to make sure it would be big enough to be used as a blanket and to wrap up in.  Those last seven rows had almost 1000 stitches in them and took a looooooooong time to do :)  The afghan took about 15 7-8 oz. skeins of yarn and is approximately 73” in diameter.

Of course there’s one more thing to tell you about this blanket.  I realized that I wasn’t going to have enough of the claret color to keep the color range consistent.  ACK!  So I had to go and buy more yarn for the project that was supposed to be using up stash yarn.  The Universe will have it’s little laughs :)

I also received my Black Water Abbey color card in the mail.  Beautiful colors, strong, hard-finished yarn for outer garments or penitents :)  There are two remarkable things about this color card - first, it’s free.  That, all by itself, warrants recognition.  The second thing is that it arrived in my mailbox about 2 days after I’d requested it!  I’m used to ordering something and then forgetting all about it because it takes so long to get to me.  Not this!  I’ll probably be looking into ordering a bit of this later on in the year - just to see how it works up.

Happy New Year, everyone!