Effortless Beauty

Well here I am again. Yesterday I had nothing to knit but Evil. I need to buy buttons for Bird's Sweater, but the love is gone from that project. Somehow her refusal to try it on has made me despondent about the whole thing, so now it sits unloved in the knitting basket. The surprise knitting is almost done, which is a good thing, cause I'm gonna need it to give to the person soon. But finishing work can be so boring, so it too sits unloved beneath Bird's cabled sweater. That leaves me with Evil to knit. And I just can't bring myself to do it. I wanted to knit something soft, and Evil is definitely not soft. I wanted to order some yarn from Knitpicks for my corset-a-long, but that was going to take too long, so instead I bought the largest amount of yarn I have ever bought for one single project. See



And I'm still two skeins short on the blue yarn, thank goodness for no dye lot acrylic. I'm making this for my Aunt.



Last year my Aunt gave me all her old knitting needles and crochet hooks. She used to knit and crochet, but she is now too ill to continue. Then a few months ago she gave me all her old pattern books and magazines. There were some gorgeous patterns, like this afghan, and some truly comical ones from the seventies. All in all it was a very nice thing for her to do. As we were looking through the patterns together she paused to look at this pattern and she told me she purchased this book just for this pattern, but never got around to making it. I knew right then I wanted to make it for her. It is supposed to be knit is wool, but my aunt is allergic to wool so I am knitting it in acrylic. It was going to be acrylic or cotton and cotton was getting way to pricey. I'm knitting the afghan in the lovely "light country blue" the flowers will be duplicate knit in shades of yellow. I think it will be just lovely. I've got a bit done already.



Two diamonds down, only 22 more to go. This pattern is deceptively easy. Mostly it's just stockinette combined with reverse stockinette to create the diamonds. Then there's the cable on the side, but that only uses one kind of cable stitch, so I don't even have to remember which direction to cable, it's always just C4B. See Easy Beauty. It is knit in panels that are later sew together. Here is a better picture of the stitches and a more accurate picture of the color



Right now I'm in the new love phase of knitting where I'm completely infatuated with the pattern and want to sit knitting all day long and just let the kids fend for themselves (and I wonder why they're acting more feral than usual lately and the house is an absolute wreck). But I know this shall pass and when it does Evil is always waiting.