Thursday, August 9, 2007

Forced myself to improvise

My super secret ripple afghan for my brother was near to being finished. I held off because the yarn was so darn hot to work with, being worsted weight Woolease. Add to that that the white yarn was extra fluffy with what appears to be a fine strand of angelina in it to give it a sparkly look.

Here is the finished afghan:



But since I was already finished with the August afghan, I decided that I needed to suck it up and really finish this time - the crocheting at least. On all the afghans but mom's I still have to weave in ends. Anyway.... I did what I thought was enough but once I tested the afghan using my husband's legs I realized that there was no way around the fact that the afghan was just too short. I had plenty of the gold and the black yarn, but not any white and I really didn't want to buy more just for 2 single row stripes (what I would need to make it long enough, using the repeat pattern). So I decided to just continue on and use the gold and black on one side, and then add on to the beginning. I don't think anybody but another picky crocheter like me would be able to tell.

And here is a detail of the added on gold and black:



The white is the beginning chain upside down, the 1 row gold stripe on top of the white is the beginning of the addition, continuing on to the 3 black rows.

Have any of you done something similar?

Peace,

Susan (aka ZenKnit)

3 comments:

Barb Mcf said...

I like how you added to both ends to make it long enough. Very creative. If any one else notices that it was added on, they are just too darn close. I think it came out lovely.

Aim said...

You can't even tell. That was a great save! My save involved cutting off the end of a too-long section of granny-type crochet (with my serger!!!), to make the blanket all the same length, and then SCing over the fix--risky, but worth it in the end!

ajcrochets said...

Yep! I just did that with a striped afghan that I frogged so many times because I couldn't get the colors to balance the way I wanted. I added two rows to the chain, and as you said, no one would ever know unless they know the craft and are looking really closely. I think that trick is easier to hide on something that is patterned because your eyes aren't drawn to it. Great looking afghan!