Finished My Afghan

For my last Knit Natters demo, I came up with a tuck lace afghan on my bulky machine.  I saw an idea in a magazine, then swatched, fiddled, and came up with my version.

With my swatches, I played around with fringe, tassels, and edgings, and I decided that a simple hem made the most professional finish for the latched panels.  The stitch has 3 needles in work and one out, and I used the same needle arrangement for the hems.  The mattress-stitched hems ensure every panel meets perfectly at the ends and lies nicely.

When I went to knit club, all I had done were the panels.  The panels still needed to be latched together, the sides had to be latched to make a pretty edge, and the hems, top and bottom, needed mattress stitched.  

For grown-ups, I like a big afghan.  This is about 5 feet by 6 six feet. I used two cones of dark and two cones of light, but I still have about 10 ounces of each color (4 cones of 5 ounces each).   

To my surprise, that all went very fast, and I enjoyed the finishing process.  I had used two strands of Tamm Star in a wine color and a soft rose color.  I thought perhaps having those two strands separate as I unraveled and latched might make the process tedious, but once I found an old latch hook for making rugs (it's big, and I needed the space to hold all the loops) it was terrific.

Using a tried-and-true cone yarn, stranded like this, is my new favorite afghan yarn supply.  This blanket had two cones of the same yarn for each panel, but for some afghans I made a while back, I actually used three thinner yarns to make a "tweed," a mixture of different colors. You don't need so very much of each color, and the finished result is quite interesting.

The color is truer in the close-up; that is, the wine is a little darker, but the rose is about right on my monitor.