The Wedding Afghan is Done!

Well, actually it's been done since the 23rd of March. I've been trying to get a REALLY good photo of it. This is the best I could do. Here's what I know about taking photos of off-white afghans.....they're HARD to photograph!

1. They're off-white, so, any sun in the photo overexposes that area.
2. They're large, so, to get the whole afghan in the picture you lose a lot of the detail of stitching.

So, once again, an okayish (but not great) photo. Anyway,  I'm glad to have the afghan done. I don't think I could have done it without the help of the Blanket-along  put on by Cherry Heart. It really gave me that extra incentive of just getting in and working on the afghan. Exclusively, I might add. So a BIG Thank-you Cherry Heart for hosting the Blanket-along for the month of March!

I thought I would share some of the "key" things I learned along the way working on this afghan. You know, in case it might help someone out there.

The biggest thing I learned is about dye lot. Actually, to be more precise, "No Dye Lot". Apparently, there is no such thing. Which, I had actually heard before. But. I seem to NEED to learn things the hard way. If you notice in the photo above, some of the blocks are slightly yellower than the other blocks. Why? Because one skein of the "No Dye Lot" yarn I was using differed from the other two "No Dye Lot" skeins I had used. So, I tried to arrange the strips of blocks creatively to make it look like those yellower blocks were just part of the "plan".

Frustrating is a word that comes to mind. To avoid this in the future (here's the part where it might help someone else too), not only will I try to purchase all the "No Dye Lot" yarn I think I might need all at once (I know to do this with "dye lot" yarn). But. I'll also try to make sure the colors don't look different from the other skeins. Because, I have to tell you, the last time I was looking at "No Dye Lot" yarn, there was color differences in the same bin. This probably wouldn't be very noticeable if you were using several colors. But. When you're only using one color, it's EXTREMELY noticeable.

Halfway through this afghan, I also decided that I wanted to learn the Magic ring . If you haven't learned that technique yet, I HIGHLY recommend it!

I also learned more stitches than I ever knew existed.....bobbles, clusters, front post stitches, back post stitches, crocheting through the front loops only, crocheting through the back loops only, picots......lots and lots of stitches! If you're thinking you want to learn more new stitches, you should think about making a sampler afghan. Want some inspiration, check out the afghans in this thread. If you crochet and would like to do that, the first step is to join 2015 crochet block a month cal and start stitching up some blocks. Everyone in that group is so helpful and supportive. A SUPER big thank-you to everyone in 2012-2015 BAMCAL for all your encouragement in the making of this afghan!

I hope you'll consider making a sampler afghan. If so, I'll see you over at BAMCAL and we'll work on it together!

Happy crocheting!

Lori