Kelli Makes an Afghan

A post from Kelli–

For a long time, I’ve wanted to make an afghan.  I’ve enjoyed seeing the projects that my sister Kayla makes.  I’ve bought yarn many times with the intention of making a project, have gotten it started, but lost my place or not come back to it.  One night a few weeks ago, I was trying to kill some time while working a night shift and decided that I was going to find a pattern to make an afghan.  I had some yarn that I had bought a while ago that all coordinated that I had planned to make granny squares with, so I wanted something scrappy that I could use rather than have to go buy new.  I also wanted it to have a consistant pattern that I could follow or could just look at and know where I needed to start.

After a bit of searching, I found this pattern.

And my decision was officially made.

I dug out the yarn that I had been keeping and got to work.

After a few rows, I started getting super annoyed that I had to lug around all of the yard when I was doing just one row at a time.  I had wanted to do the stripes randomly, but lugging everything around was getting quite old and made me want to quit the project pretty darned quick.

I had wished that I could just have little rolls of yarn that would be enough for a row, and then realized that I could–I would just have to make them myself. So I got to work!

My plan was to measure how much yarn I would need for one row, wrap it on a ruler, and tie it somehow so I would have a bundle for each row.

And that’s precisely what I did.  The wrapped segments ended up being long enough to tie in the middle.

I had no idea how big I was going to make it, so to start off, I just made 4 bundles of each color.  I have used almost all of them up except for three.  This time I ended up making 7 bundles of each color.  I think this will end up giving me a pretty decent size, but if not, I can always make more.

After looking at it a bit closer, I can see a few spots where I made a small mistake in my numbers, but I decided to just leave it in there as it was about 10 rows until I realized it.  And it makes it a bit fun too!

I even tried to get Puppy to pose for a picture.  I took quite a few, but this is the best I could get–

She always seems to hate pictures…Unless she’s sleeping!  Speaking of this little lady, today is her 8th Birthday!  When I originally got her, Jason wasn’t too fond of getting a dog, but I had just moved in and realized how often he was gone and hated being alone all of the time.  I pretty much sat down and told him we were getting a dog and he bucked it.  I told him that his other option was to come home more and spend time with me, so we got Puppycat 3 days later.  While I wish he would come home more often, I’d be pretty lost without Puppycat!

I’d say she’s grown up a bit…and out a bit, but she’s the best dog ever!  Happy Birthday Puppycat!