Craft time! The Epic Pink Aran Afghan

The beginning was so long ago....

I am a knitter.  I'm just going to throw that out there now because I'm pretty sure that it will be impossible to keep the knitting from bleeding into the other areas of the blog from time to time.  It isn't the craft that I've been doing the longest: that would be cross stitch, which my Daddy taught me when I was around 8. Then came sewing, which I still love and do. But knitting, which I taught myself as I was moving here to Iowa seven years ago, seems to be my one true crafting companion.  It's portable in ways that both embroidery and sewing are not, it's a bit more mindless for those moments when you just need to move your hands, and it's cheaper per hour of entertainment than sewing is by a long shot.

I will admit, I'm not the fastest knitter and I have a lot to improve when it comes to technique.  Knitting teachers would cringe if they could see the way that I still drop the yarn frequently rather than tensioning it properly between my fingers. I'm also not the most persistent knitter when it comes to finishing projects either. Hence, the Epic Pink Aran Afghan.  The pattern is the Great American Aran Afghan, which began as an afghan square contest in Knitter's magazine. It's a 20 block cable and bobble fest with lots of interesting techniques and novel constructions. I've been working on my project for about 5 1/2 years.

It isn't that the afghan is particularly difficult as most of the squares are just cabling and a couple of lace bits, it more that it's modular and well....pink. It was started in a wish for spring and that's mostly when I work on it, averaging maybe 3-4 squares a season before I get called to less wooly pursuits. The squares are too handy a stopping point and offer that sense of having "completed something" when you haven't really completed anything at all. At this point, I'm 17 squares in and with the end in sight, I'm hoping to actually finish this beast some time this year.

To keep me motivated, I thought I would post some of the individual squares and talk about the process of knitting them and walk down knitter's memory lane.