January is crafting season
Jan. 11th, 2026 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThe weather sucks in January and I spend more time inside than outside, even for a relatively balmy January. This January I am working on an afghan for my couch. I spend a lot of time on my couch at home and it has "an afghan" but it's not a great one and I want a great one.
Process knitters kind of do their own thing without regard to patterns or instructions or... (much) planning. So, this is going to be my afghan that I am making for me, the way I want. A pattern was not consulted nor were there any design considerations beyond "about how big is an afghan?" and "what do I want it to look like?"
In terms of goals, I would like to work off some stash that I acquired in a free-ish sort of way, in particular stash items from this adventure that also brought me the orchids. I'm planning for the project to use up a fair amount of stash because whole afghan takes a lot of yarn.
The afghan is going to be made of squares (better portability than doing a whole afghan which is difficult to wrestle after a certain point and also who has circular needles that big anyway?) that are 40 stitches wide (this entry is also notes for me so that I can make squares that are reasonably similar to one another) and square, done in irish moss (k2, p2 for two rows, then p2, k2 for two rows, repeat the whole thing) on a long-tail cast on. I need a stretchy cast-off to use uniformly so that I have all the squares the same. Probably going to have to google that.
The afghan is going to be done in brown and white and brown/white 2 ply handspun. There is a fair amount of brown 2 ply ready to knit, which I have assembled into center-pull balls with my nifty ball winder (also acquired free of charge, see here) but also I have more brown could-be-yarn-with-some-effort-on-my-part in the stash. It's not quite the same brown color, but it's an afghan and relative brownness is not that major of a concern for me. I think it'll be fine.
There's a ton of white commercial roving in some sort of wool, which is nice enough to work with for the white squares. I've moved the wheel into the living room and oiled it up because I haven't touched it since the brown sheep sweater. And I did the better part of a spindle out of the white, most of which is pretty decent single. Turns out that you can not-touch the wheel for a couple of years and it'll come back to you fairly quickly once you try again.
Irish moss? Isn't that a lot of moving around of the hands? No. I can knit continental or English or both at the same time with two different colors. I have skills. If you have any interest in doing seed stitch or moss stitch or irish moss, being able to do continental will speed you up considerably.
The squares for this afghan will be about 9" by 9" in an "ish" sort of way because it's a fucking afghan and does not need to fit anyone for real. The whole afghan will be 6 squares wide and 7 squares long. It'll be in brown squares and white squares and brown/white flecked squares (made by combining a brown and a white single for two-ply). 42 total squares. 14 of each color, so that's cool. I should probably wash and block the squares before putting the whole thing together.
Anyway. Irish moss afghan in progress.
Process knitters kind of do their own thing without regard to patterns or instructions or... (much) planning. So, this is going to be my afghan that I am making for me, the way I want. A pattern was not consulted nor were there any design considerations beyond "about how big is an afghan?" and "what do I want it to look like?"
In terms of goals, I would like to work off some stash that I acquired in a free-ish sort of way, in particular stash items from this adventure that also brought me the orchids. I'm planning for the project to use up a fair amount of stash because whole afghan takes a lot of yarn.
The afghan is going to be made of squares (better portability than doing a whole afghan which is difficult to wrestle after a certain point and also who has circular needles that big anyway?) that are 40 stitches wide (this entry is also notes for me so that I can make squares that are reasonably similar to one another) and square, done in irish moss (k2, p2 for two rows, then p2, k2 for two rows, repeat the whole thing) on a long-tail cast on. I need a stretchy cast-off to use uniformly so that I have all the squares the same. Probably going to have to google that.
The afghan is going to be done in brown and white and brown/white 2 ply handspun. There is a fair amount of brown 2 ply ready to knit, which I have assembled into center-pull balls with my nifty ball winder (also acquired free of charge, see here) but also I have more brown could-be-yarn-with-some-effort-on-my-part in the stash. It's not quite the same brown color, but it's an afghan and relative brownness is not that major of a concern for me. I think it'll be fine.
There's a ton of white commercial roving in some sort of wool, which is nice enough to work with for the white squares. I've moved the wheel into the living room and oiled it up because I haven't touched it since the brown sheep sweater. And I did the better part of a spindle out of the white, most of which is pretty decent single. Turns out that you can not-touch the wheel for a couple of years and it'll come back to you fairly quickly once you try again.
Irish moss? Isn't that a lot of moving around of the hands? No. I can knit continental or English or both at the same time with two different colors. I have skills. If you have any interest in doing seed stitch or moss stitch or irish moss, being able to do continental will speed you up considerably.
The squares for this afghan will be about 9" by 9" in an "ish" sort of way because it's a fucking afghan and does not need to fit anyone for real. The whole afghan will be 6 squares wide and 7 squares long. It'll be in brown squares and white squares and brown/white flecked squares (made by combining a brown and a white single for two-ply). 42 total squares. 14 of each color, so that's cool. I should probably wash and block the squares before putting the whole thing together.
Anyway. Irish moss afghan in progress.
