Looking for local knitters

Hi!

I started the quilt when I was living in East Aurora, NY - now I'm living in Tempe, AZ, and looking for folks to commiserate with/learn with. Anybody out there?

I finished my last square!

Wow! I combined the Great American Afghan and Great American Aran Afghan, and finally, after two years, completed 30 squares - it's really big. Blocking took a really long time - some of them were much smaller than they should have been, and some were at quite a rakish angle.

I spent last night basting the squares together, and will begin the actual sewing today. They actually seemed to fit together pretty well when basted, so I'm hopeful the afghan will look as it should. Of course, the border will probably take another month or so, but it would be really cool if I could give myself the afghan for Christmas.

A new member

Hello,
I´m Reni from Austria, 40 years old, three sons. I´ve been knitting a lot when I was younger, but mostly cardigans, pullovers etc. Now I began again - and I am totally addicted to do lace and - the GAAA. I fell in love with it when I saw it the first time.
A few days ago I finally got my yarn - cascade 220 - and today I had some free minutes to start the first square. I choosed Hanna Burns because it was told to be one of the easiest. Ujujujuj - I wonder how the more difficult squares will be???
I succeeded to do 11 rows today, and my fingers are nearly broken. I´m afraid how the other squares will be? and wonder if I will ever succeed to finish the afghan :((
However, it is a great fun to knit the pattern!! and the wool is perfect.
So I hope to hear from you and not to desperate with my aran!!
Greetings from Austria
Reni

Introducing myself :)

Hello :)
My name is Gabi, and I'm living in Australia with my husband, 2 daughters and couple of critters. Recently I picked up my knitting needles again after long long years of not knitting to start this afghan. Fell totally in love with this Aran afghan when seeing some fellow stitchers starting it.
And I deeply enjoy knitting these squares. My plan is to knit all 24 squares of the book.
The wool I chose is called Luxury from the Bendigo Woollen Mills - a soft pure wool.



3 squares are already done: Ginette Belanger, Barbara Selesnick and Hanna Burns.

Great American Aran Afghan

I have been dying to knit this afghan for a long time and am so happy to have finally started it. Here are the first two squares. Vicky Sever and Suzanne Atkinson and I'm planning to knit it twice. Once as a surprise for DD and once for me. Might as well knit two squares as I go along (you know... before I forget everything). ;) Needless to say, I'll be hanging around in here a lot.

Last Two Squares

I started this last summer and got about 18 squares done. I finished the last two this week. From the Great American Afghan book, I did Melissa Leapman's cat square














and Sally Melville's sampler square.














Now to stitch them all together and add the i-cord edge.

Square 8

Dagmara Berztiss

Joining the blog

Hi,

My name is Marti Kaplan, and I've just joined a group working on the Great American Aran Afghan. I've finished Ginette Belanger’s square, and am just beginning Barbara Selesnick's. In about a month, I'll be moving to Arizona, and so am looking forward to being a part of the blog, since I won't have my ftf group to work with.

Squares 5, 6 & 7

I keep on knitting !

Squares 3 & 4

As promised

Hanna Burns' block


Julie H. Levy's block

Introduction - squares 1 & 2

Hi, my name is Céline and I live in South of France.
I fell in love with the GAAA while surfing around blogs a few months ago, bought the pattern book online, took some time to choose the right yarn for me (Lammy Yarn’s Irlandais) and jumped in knitting my first blocks a few days ago.
So far I’ve knit 4 blocks noted the easiest ones in the booklet :

Ginette Belanger’s,

Barbara Selesnick’s,

Hanna Burns’ (not an easy one in my humble opinion, following the different charts with different row counts is a little tricky) and Julie H. Levy’s (without the bobbles). I'll post a picture of the last two later.
I’ll probably switch the blocks I don’t like with some of the GAA and some of other inspirations (celtic knots, cables untangled, Taste of Aran Afghan, Burridge Lake Aran, etc).
Happy knitting !

Update

Just a quick update, I have completed 5 squares so far. More details can be found here.
Janelle.

Squares so far

These are two of my squares so far - put together from a stitch manual I got secondhand. The sizes are slightly random, but blocking seems to fix everything!

Finished - But still going!

I finished what might have been my last square - 20 squares done - but then decided that I really wanted this afghan to be larger. So...I'm still going. Since I am combining squares from both the Great American Aran and the Great American Afghan Books, there are still more to choose from. I'm shooting for 5x6, or 30 squares.

Finished first square

My wool arrived last friday and I was finally able to get started on my GAAA. Today I finished my first square - the Julie H Levy. I chose an easy one to start with just to get me into the swing of things. It's been quite some time since I've knitted.

Anyone reading this still?

I'm new to the GAAA blog--just planning to start this project, as a potential wedding gift for a daughter not even engaged yet.  I'm glad to have resources online written by those of you who have gone before me, as I'm sure I will wonder what I was thinking even starting this at times--your experience has already helped in my planning.  I really appreciate the tips and trouble-shooting pointers so far.  I am planning to use Jo Sharp's Classic Wool DK yarn in color Porcelain, and buying it from an Australian source, which turns out to be much less cost--believe it or not, some places our dollar trades advantageously!  I am just finishing another sampler afghan (24 squares) using this yarn in a beautiful red shade, and I've loved the yarn.  The "hand wash" part will be the kicker--any tips?  The afghan is beautiful, I'm looking forward to starting.  I noticed the last post was September '08, and I'm just wondering if you all still follow this, if you're all all done with the project, or what--would love to see more current info. but will spend some time catching up on all the old posts.