A Year of Afghan – Knitting

I haven’t written much about it yet, but I’m working on a massive stash-busting project this year that I expect will take me on and off all year to knit: a gigantic (6 foot square, I’m hoping!) strip afghan worked all in Garter Stitch. I’m hoping this will basically eliminate the odd balls in my stash and make me feel a lot better about the amount of yarn in my house. Also, I’ll be really warm next winter.

I’m not the only one with big projects in mind this year. Ros over at RosMadeMe has embarked on a year-long afghan knitting project, too, but she’s knitting individual blocks and sharing them on her blog.

She’s made good progress so far, even though she had a little trouble getting some of her yarn.

Do you have any big projects planned for this year? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo via RosMadeMe.]

Next Pattern:

Using your yarn stash is important to me throughout the year, but as I start to feel the end of the year coming on I get more excited about using things I already have in the house. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to a store in the thick of holiday shopping times, or I like the idea of having a little space in my stash when the new year rolls around.

It’s super satisfying to use up all the little odd balls you’ve made over the year (or years), and I have several stash busting blankets I work on when it’s cold and will maybe finish someday.

If you’d like to start a stash busting project that’s perfect for using up odd balls, check out the Soukish pattern from Neisha Abdulla. This pattern is made for fingering weight/sock yarn, and it’s worked in a tube with allover color work.

This is great for a couple of reasons. You don’t really have to weave in your ends when you can hide them in a tube (this is one time you might even get by just tying a knot when you change colors!) and you can change colors whenever you run out of yarn and it will look good.

Of course the pattern is made with blocks where the designer changed colors, but you can change yours more or less often as you need to make it work for your stash. You can use blank charts to design your own color combinations, or even your own stitch patterns if you like. You can also adjust the length of the scarf as needed or turn it into a cowl based on the amount of yarn you have.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great thing to have on hand to stitch up and then to wear during the cold, gloomy months.

You can get a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla]

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Comments

Becky PS says
February 8, 2013 at 6:42 pm
First – I am trying so very, very hard to avoid sales cause I “need” more yarn. 😉
Second – Oh help – Do I have projects!? I am trying to finish some I started a year (or more) ago.
An afghan – keep losing the actual pattern so it has many different bands of stitches! All knitted in dreamy blues and greens of Homespun.
A skirt – my second and in a reasonable color to wear. Why on earth did i knit the first one in Carolina Blue!?
A top to match said skirt.
and two Spring shrugs to finish! one white and one in lavender.
Whew – now I’m tired…

Next Pattern:

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