Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Doctor Who baby lapghan

I have not been good about keeping the blog up these days. I am sorry about that. It was so busy for a while and these are quiet days. I guess I am grateful for the lull. :-)

I thought I'd update on the lapghan/baby afghan. I've finished two strips and begun the last one.

The basic pattern I am using was inspired by the "inches" pattern on DoctorWhoScarf . I did not measure inches. I just took the idea and chose to use 4 rows for every inch Gene listed, even though that was not going to be a physical inch in my strip. It gave me a guide to start which was very helpful. (Gene's pattern is for knitted scarves, fyi.)

The main thing to remember in making this particular afghan is that you have to follow the stripe pattern remembering that you are working "up" so to speak. I rewrote my pattern with that in mind. I'm not explaining that well. The pattern starts with the purple/burgundy. For my first strip I began there and worked through to a camel stripe. I didn't finish that stripe but ended the first strip there. For the second strip, I had to work backwards. So I began with graphite and ended with the finish of the camel stripe. That way the camel stripes were next to one another and continued the "scarf" pattern. Then for the last strip I began by finishing the graphite section which was at the "bottom" of my 2nd scarf strip. It sounds complex when you read it but in reality it is obvious when you're working it.

Perhaps the picture can explain it better.


I have a few things in mind to try next. I want to make a one piece following the stripe pattern. The tricky thing with that will be to figure out how wide to make it so it looks right.

I also want to do one with double crochet. I have several ideas about how to do that.

I am enjoying working with the lighter weight yarn. I think it does justice to the pattern better than the worsted yarns. The smaller stitches, to me, are more closely in line with the knitted stitches. Of course, this particular yarn comes from the UK and mailing costs are much higher when buying from overseas. I lucked out with these skeins as they were had a free shipping offer at the time. I wouldn't hesitate to buy from Deramores again though. They were fast and accurate. The yarn is wonderful. No problems with it at all thus far.

You'll notice in the picture there is some turning at the corners. This will be fixed as the strips are joined together and an edging added.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie