I Can Quit Anytime. Really.

Hello. I'm Julie and I'm an Afghanaholic. I offer the following as evidence.

It all started back when I didn't learn to knit. My grandmother did manage to teach me to crochet. I made my first descent into afghans when I was an adolescent.














It went latent for a while. Skulking at the edges of my consciousness. Rising up periodically when I would buy books of afghan patterns. It reappeared in adulthood. My two younger brothers and their wives were expecting their first child(ren? Only one apiece). I decided to crochet baby blankets. This is when my children discovered I knew how to make things from yarn. They wanted to know why I hadn't made anything for them. Oh, Um. Well. Ahem. You see . . .

The next step was the afghan that never ends (except it finally did). It's Clare's.

















She managed to choose, and then change, multiple shades of blue. No change was compatible with the blues on hand. I finally found the last one in a little yarn shop in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. She also changed patterns. Twice (I think). Further complications arose when Marco discovered how much fun it is to unzip crochet. I would pick up the afghan and find the previous day's work in a tangle of yarn. Sometimes more than the previous day's work. I learned to fasten off firmly. I started this when (I think) Clare was in 7th grade. I finished it when she was a freshman - in college. Last year, in fact.

This is where things get ugly. After all those years, wouldn't you think I'd have had enough? I thought I would. Not so. As I realized I was nearing the end of the everlasting afghan, I had one of those fits of inspiration. (Yes. I get those a lot.) Afghans for my siblings for Christmas gifts. Five of them. No pictures - I had no idea I would be blogging less than a year later. And I did it. Big yarn. V-stitch. Stripes. Fringe. Loads of fun. Thank heaven I didn't know how to knit. The only way to finish so insane a project was with the speed of crochet. Okay, so I was weaving in the ends on the last one on the way to the party. In the car. In the dark. And hiding in my sister's home office while I finished the fringe.

Then I got hit with a combination of At Knit's End ( picked up at Barnes & Noble while in line at the Starbuck's), the Knitting Olympics (No, I didn't join. I couldn't knit, remember?), and the Splendid Sofa blanket. Known in another incarnation as Cat Bordhi's Island Embrace Blanket (it's free). This concatenation of circumstances is what made me decide that this time, by Harry, I would conquer this knitting thing.

I love working on this blanket. Many heartfelt thanks to Ms. Bordhi.

Three different yarns. Size 11 Addi Turbos. Knit a row with one yarn. Pick up the second yarn and knit back. Pick up the third one and knit across again. Pick up the first yarn and just keep on keepin' on. Cool yarn is very important for this project. It's ideal Friday-Night-DVDs-with-the-kids knitting.

Obviously, the addiction is only re-manifesting itself in the mitered square thing.



















I just hope my sewing up skills have improved since I was 13.