It’s finally done! I took the cabled afghan to the knitting night at the library, and managed to nearly complete it there, then headed home and finished the last two rows. This morning I tucked in and trimmed all the loose ends, then tossed it into the washing machine to (hopefully) remove significant quantities of cat hair from all my ‘knitting’ assistants, then laid it out on the floor and snapped a few shots.
The full length shot
Close-up of the center cable pattern, and the ‘filler’ section of tile stitch for the middle.
Close-up of the Twining Trees motif
Oh, and for all my worrying about how to get the Trees to cable upside down, when I took it out of the washing machine, I couldn’t immediately tell which side was ‘up’, short of staring at the fabric to figure out which way the stitches were pointing. Which is exactly what I wanted – yay!
Edited to add pattern information, so it’s all in one place
Yarn: Red Heart, in Aran Fleck (since with six cats this had to be machine washable) – just under 5 skeins.
Cable Patterns:
- Twining Trees
- Ring and Bobble (I made mine without the bobble – this is the outermost cable)
- Saxon/Celtic Braid
- Tile stitch was from the Stitch A Day calendar
- Center cabled motif was from this sweater by Estelle Designs
- Bottom strip under trees was a simple side-leaning Twist 2 back, every 8 stitches bordered on top and bottom by 2 rows of moss stitch; the strip that borders the center panel is a simple Cable 2 (front or back, depending on the side).
- Each cable set is separated by 2 stitches of plain old purl
Naturally, I immediately cast on and started swatching for the next afghan (which is going to be blissfully cable free, and thus will be finished in less than half the time). I’ll have in-progress pictures of that by the weekend, I think.
I’m also now pondering what sort of socks to make for my SockpalTwoza pal. I’ve got one sock currently on the needles (from months ago, in fact), and I’d like to get it finished before starting a new one. So I think this weekend I’ll be ‘clearing off’ the sock needles in preparation for something lovely for my sock pal. I’m thinking something lacy…..hmmm.
Oh my gosh, that turned out beautifully. Well done. *applause*
How beautiful. And you were worried about cables…looks like you mastered them right here.
I want to do the Knitter’s magazine aran afghan someday; 16 squares, all in a different design. It remains to be seen, however, if I can stand the asymmetry. I may have to pick four favorites and repeat the squares.
Wow – I admire your cableing perserverance!
Thanks (grin)! I think what helped keep me motivated was that because I had to do the trees upside down, that meant I had to calculate out exactly how many rows the whole thing was. So I could count them down as I finished them and could see when the end was in sight.
I can’t get over how gorgeous that is! And you came up with it on your own? This is my first visit to your blog (I saw your post about Spring Fling on ampleknitters and came to take a look at that) so now I’m off to read through the archives and see if you explain how this project came to be.
Wow, you are so talented. I am new to knitting and have yet to start anything that I hve not learned how to do. Like purses. Congrats on the cabled afghan. Enjoyed reading your blog and getting to know you in the blog world.
WOW! Double WOW!!! That is beautiful! Congratulations on your FO.
That’s amazing!! I love the trees, they’re just fantastic.
Love it! Wonderful trees…I kept scrolling back up for another look. So LOTR…Love it!
That is absolutely amazing! I agree with Heather, very LOTR. WOW!
I think I can safely say that your afghan is one of the most b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l afghans I have EVER seen in my life.
Well done.
That is so beautiful – well done!
Breath-taking. Really. I stumbled on your blog while looking for twining tree patterns (not necessarily for knitting) and I can’t stop looking at your afghan. I just had to say Bravo!
Oh.Wow.
It’s gorgeous! I have just been sitting here trying to figure out exactly how to do the tree pattern upside down so I could do it on a top-down sweater. I am still a little in the dark, but I see that it can be done now. I understand you start at the top of the chart to reverse it, but do you also have to reverse the increases and decreases too?
Thanks and lovely job!