Friday, April 29, 2005

Introduction and Advice

Based on the recommendations found in another knitting blog, I decided to take up the challenge of knitting one of these Afghans. I'm a relatively new knitter, previously more of a crocheter. Once I picked up the second needle though, I never went back! My personal blog can be found at misty.org, it's both knitting and personal, I don't keep a separate one. Yet. :P

I finally received the book (ordered from knitpicks) yesterday, and immediately gushed over all of the patterns. i had thought it was beautiful looking at what'd been done already by you all, but the total package up close makes me quite pleased that I stumbled upon this!

My questions are as follows - did you find the yarn recommendation (Encore I beleive it was, the book is at home) a good one, or did you swap out with another yarn? Also, I've only ever done one cabling project before, what do you think a good square is to start on - one of the 5 advertised 'easy squares' or one of the other ones? Lastly - Are any of you doing the pillows as well?

I look forward to starting on this project sometime this week. Hope you all are doing well with yours!

3 comments:

Kim in Oregon said...

Hi Misty. I really like encore. I rarely use the exact yarn and color that a pattern recommends, but with this one I did. Like Kristin said, I wanted something washable, and I also really really like the color.

If you aren't used to cables, i would definitely start with the easy ones. The Selesnick one that I'm doing is the simplest of the three I've done. Personally, I would rate them (easiest to hardest): Selesnick, Belanger, Levy. Although Belanger and Levy are pretty close.

Pillows, who knows. There are several squares I don't like too well so I know I won't be doing those, so I may do duplicates as pillows (or maybe invent my own by the time I've finished 20 squares...we should be pretty good at this by then and maybe someone here will design her own??).

wittyknits said...

I'm using Encore, because of it's washability/durability, and also because the price is pretty good for having to buy that much yarn. I like it so far, even better than the wool ease I used for an afghan last year.

I'm on the fourth "easy" square now, the Ann Strong one, and it's way easy. I would recommend you not start with the one with the DNA cable--this is only my second cabled project, and I about gave up on it after starting with that one, because it's a harder one to read the stitches on because there are cable twists on both RS and WS.

I'm not doing the pillows, only because there were enough squares that I disliked to make just the blanket. :-)

Anonymous said...

I am using the Encore as well. I like the feel of it, it needs to be washable, and the price was right. I am using a soft sage green color and plan to edge it with a deeper green for contrast. Linda