Building in Color Afghan: Complete

Building in Color Afghan: Finally DONE!





This project has been in the works for a very long time. I selected the yarn for this project nearly two years ago.  I was scheduled to teach this pattern as a year-long class during 2017.  I had four students in my class and we met one time each month for a year.  No one in the class finished their afghans as far as I know it. We were all just kind of burned out.  These same students had all taken my year-long Building Blocks Afghan class during 2016 and I think we were all just sort of tired of afghan knitting.

During all of 2018, I have been teaching this pattern again as a year-long class with four new students.  These gals are on top of things and keeping me on my toes.  All year long, I've been telling these gals that I needed to get my panels sewn together.  This past Saturday we worked on the final panel in class (Panel #10) so I had to get my afghan done!  I in December, I show the students how to sew the panel together and in January 2019, we will learn how to knit the borders.

If you would like to see all of my prior posts about this Building in Color Afghan project, you can see those posts HERE.

As you can see, this project is comprised of 10 different long rectangular panels.  Some panels are made with two colors and other panels are made with three colors.  The panels were all stitched together with the mattress stitch and then borders with mitered corners were added at the end.  Sewing all of these panels together was very challenging, but it can be done. I ended up having to take apart the bind off edge of one panel to make it shorter.  The interesting thing about this project (aside from learning color work skills) is that you learn that each type of stitch pattern creates a very different fabric. Some panels wanted to stretch length-wise and others wanted to stretch width-wise. Some panels were super stretchy and others did not have much elasticity and were rather dense.

I've tried to take some photos so you can see the project well.  It's hard to get it all in!  I should point out four things I changed to the pattern.

(1) The bind off around the entire afghan was supposed to be a Picot Bind Off.  I did not like the look of it so I just did a regular bind off.
(2) One panel is sewn in upside down because I liked the looks of the wrong side better than the right side.
(3) One panel was supposed to have some embroidery stitch embellishments (the tan colored panel with the squiggly blue zig zag should have pink polka dots on it).  I did not like the idea of having just one panel with polka dots so I left them out.  In some of the photos below, you can see one lonely pink polka dot on the panel I am referencing.  I removed it.
(4) The pattern calls for DK weight yarn but I used worsted weight yarn and larger needles than called for in the pattern.



Below: Very first panel sewn together!  Woo hoo!




I cannot tell you how many hours I sat at my dining table between Saturday and Wednesday this past week.  I was sending my mom updates here and there via email as I was working on this and, when it was all done, she said, "Wow! You got that done really quickly!"

No, it took FOREVER but I was just so determined to get it DONE!

The sewing together did get easier as I went along but the mattress stitch was so tough because you are just not knitting together two panels in stockinette stitch. You are dealing with all sorts of fabrics and techniques and it's hard to find what you should grab for a nice looking seam both on the right side and the wrong side.  Also, you are constantly having to adjust how you worked the mattress stitch because you are easing in the fullness due to differences in the panels.

The borders were not too tricky but I ended up having to redo the border on one of the short sides. I had picked up far too many stitches and, as a result, had a very ruffled border.  I am glad I took it out and did it over.  My one complaint about the border is that it created so many more loose ends to weave in and also I had a tough time stitching together the mitered corners.  If I were to do this again, I would use one very long cable and knit the border in the round (you can buy extenders to hook together multiple cables... I think it could be done!)





So there you have it!  Frankly I am just tired of this project and so happy to move onto something new.

Afghan burn out! It's a thing.

On a positive note, I am over the moon to have learned so many new skills from this project.  If you are up for a challenge and want to learn some new skills, this project is amazing.  While I've been excited to have the opportunity to teach this project in a class setting, you don't need to take a class.  The pattern designer, Michelle Hunter, has excellent videos for each skill on her blog.  Her videos are great; you can find them all here.

As a quick recap, here is a quick list of some of the many skills which were NEW to me in this project:

• Intarsia
• Double Ended Knitting
• Short Rows
• Knit Below
• Make One Purl
• Elongated Stitch
• Mosaic
• Butterfly Stitch
• Intarsia with a Cable
• Tuck Stitch
• Mattress Stitch

Happy Knitting! Hopefully I'll have some more completed projects to show you sometime soon.