Saturday, May 6, 2006

I have lost my ever-lovin' mind...

I had a coupon from Herrschners for free shipping--coupon due to expire on 31 May.

So I took a favorite afghan pattern of mine--one that's based on a log-cabin quilt pattern--and figured out how much yarn it would take to make a bedspread. The sucker'll weigh 20+ pounds--nearly 9 kilos!--but at least you crochet individual tiles, then assemble them, so you're not holding all that weight for most of the work. I ordered the yarn today. Some of the yarn is out of stock until early June, but that's fine. I've still got a baby afghan to finish.

The yarn is Red Heart knitting worsted--nothing fancy. (For this much yarn, who could afford fancy?) The colors are Soft Navy, Country Blues, Dark Sage, Light Sage, Medium Brown, Warm Brown, and Buff, and they're pretty accurately represented in this sample of an individual tile:


Quilt TileQuilt Tile
An individual tile in the bedspread-to-be



There are a few variations in how you can assemble the tiles; you get different patterns depending on how you rotate the pieces. I think this is the one I'm going for:


Quilt-like Bedspread-to-beQuilt-like Bedspread-to-be
The spread will be finished with border stripes outside the patterned squares.



I've guessed at the number of squares I'll need to make (168!); the actual count will depend on the size they turn out when I make them. I'm usually off on the gauge, but I'm not sure I want to increase the hook size too much to hit the correct gauge, because I'm not sure I want stitches that large. (The pattern calls for a J hook--6.5mm.) I estimated 8-inch squares, where the pattern calls for 9.5-inch squares. I'm likely to have a lot of yarn left over, but these are good, standard colors, and I can make something else with them--maybe a mini-version of the afghan.

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