Saturday, August 18, 2007

OK, I can talk about it now! (FO - group gift baby afghan)

I JUST got back from a baby shower. For Lora from my Lawrence Knit Group (and her family and friends). She was the first person in that group for whom I had a name and face that matched up.

So I proposed that several of us do a group gift. It started with 8in bias squares in non-pastel tones (which I showed here. They were laid out and shuffled around several times.



Then there was a lot of this:

as I attached them all together by picking up stitches along the edges, knitting one row on each facing square, then doing a three needle bind off. Four ends per seam, too.

There was also a modicum of this:
as I put a simple two round crochet border around the outside to help stablize the edge.

And it all ended up looking like:
.

Yes, there are a few things I'll do different next time. For one, it's a bit wonky due to the different gauges. Six knitters, no set materials, just worsted weight wool. For another, I think the blocks would have benefited from a slight felting before assembly to make a denser fabric. That might have shrunk some of the oversized squares down a bit.

But she seemed to like it. DeeAnna, Nancy, June, Heather, Emily - thank you for sharing in the love and labor of this gift. We did good!

4 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

The blanket looks wonderful. I am so happy that you volunteered to do the putting together of the squares.

Yay for group knitting gifts.

Unknown said...

PS I deleted the first comment I left because I can't spell.

Karla (ThreadBndr) said...

LOL - me either. I think Lora liked all the gifts. They had quite a haul! And I loved meeting E in person after hearing about her from her mom for the last couple of years! I had a GREAT time yesterday. Looking forward to some knitting time today, though.