Celtic Knots

What do you do when someone has absolutely nothing on their wishlist, and when every single family member you ask for ideas cannot come up with a single thing (assuming, of course, that they respond to your messages in the first place)?

You knit them an afghan for Christmas.

Got the yarn and cast on December 4th; finished the last loop last night (the 22nd). The pattern is the Celtic Knot Afghan. I used just under 9 skeins of Red Heart Soft, so this sucker is a bit on the heavy side. The recipient will need something extremely durable, that can be tossed in the washing machine and in the dryer, so I decided acrylic was the best option, and I’m quite happy with how it turned out.

I did three panels, with 7 repeats of the 40-row cable pattern per panel, and by the time I was starting the second panel, I had that thing memorized, and may likely continue to knit the dang cable in my sleep for a few weeks longer. I admit I was really hesitant about the edging, but once I started, it looked far better than I expected, so I kept on going. Attaching the edging was a royal pain, plus the pattern gives you absolutely no info on how to *end* it (although it wasn’t all that hard to figure out once I realized what was missing), and for both ends I pretty much did about 20 loops worth and then crocheted it to the afghan and then kept on knitting the edging until it looked like I had enough. This is how I ended up with three more loops on one end than on the other but I suspect no one but me will ever bother counting them, so I’m not going to worry about it.