or my excuse to buy a ton of manos



a mitred square afghan
in Manos del Uruguay (colors 14, 24, 27, 57, 67, 113, M, T, and Z)

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This is cool. We left Iceland at about 5pm and arrived in Boston at the same time. It's a 5 hour flight to America and there's a 5 hour time difference between the two countries. Which all means that it was 5pm for the entire trip. The view out the window was eerily constant - the sunset frozen shortly before sundown, the sky turning dark only as we finally turned to fly south down the eastern coastline of the US. Local time 5 o'clock.

But let's go back to 5pm the night before....

For our last night in Germany, we lit the candles on the tree one last time (yes, the family still uses real candles!) and I finished weaving in the last ends on the in-laws' afghan. I didn't even have to stay up till 5am to get it all done!

Finally done, I could go to bed and get some sleep for the next day's trip. We got the airport in plenty of time, check-in was easy peasy (there's so much less stress when you're flying to Iceland - still in Europe - first!) and the kids had plenty of time to play in Kiddieland before we had to go through security.

wee one is sharing her Zwieback with Ernie

The kids waited excitedly for the trip to start.

And once on the plane, wee one enjoyed my book (well, the cover at least) before settling in for a good nap.

But the boys were too entertained by Iceland Air's fun stuff for kids and "How it's Made" on the in-flight entertainment and forgot to sleep. They woke up at 3am this morning and here's how they were at dinner tonight (we had to go out to eat because we haven't had time to buy any food yet).

Wake up, boys, it's only 5 o'clock!

The Christmas crafting isn't over yet! I've got yet another itty bitty hat to knit and some things to sew (yes, I brought fabric to Germany to sew!), but first there's still the afghan for my in-laws.

Looks pretty good from the front, huh? When they opened the gift and pulled out the afghan, they seemed to like it. They said the colors were beautiful and it must have been a lot of work. And the work continues....

I'm down to about 100 ends left to weave in. Seriously, the back looks so much better than before that it seems practically finished to me! All the remaining ends are in corners where four squares meet and require a little more careful attention to ensure that all the joins look nice and neat. I left them to the end so I could work on them calmly once the majority of ends were already gone and the whole back wasn't quite so overwhelming and scary. If I can get the final ends woven in in the next 48 hours, it'll be a wonderful way to finish off another year of knitting.

Happy New Year to everyone out there and best wishes for a creative and crafty 2008!

Twas the night before German Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except Alison who was sewing up an afghan as fast as she can.

One more seam and my two halfghans will make one. It's... gonna... be... grrrEAT! I can't get a really good picture of all the colors when I'm doing the wide shot, so here's a close-up so you can see how pretty the yarn really is.

There's still a bazillion ends on the backside, but the front should look clean and complete by tomorrow. Hooray!

Sixty-four squares to sixteen squares to four rows. I'm getting there.

We're off to Germany and I've only manged to sew the afghan squares into four large rows. And I didn't get to weaving in any of the ends either. But I'm okay with that. We're there for two weeks - I'll get it done. My goal is to work away on it at night in secret for the first couple of days so I can give it to them all in one piece, but still with thousands of ends hanging off, on Christmas. Make that Christmas Eve, since that's when they do presents in Germany. Grrrr.... With three kids, there's little chance I'll get anything done on it in the plane, but I am planning on bringing part of it with me just in case. I'm packing a crochet hook, a chibi, and some kids' craft scissors in my carry-on, so wish me luck getting through security!! And while you're at it, could you maybe make it stop snowing here? Aaaack!

Nope, it's not a new Jennifer Garner movie, it's the manos afghan.

I finished the 64th square on Saturday and spent Sunday sewing the 64 little squares into 16 large ones. Wee one is very curious about the squares. She's always pulling herself up to peek at them on the counter and when I laid them all out for the picture, she had to scoot on over to check them out. She even tried to take off with one of the pink ones!

Sewing each four-square block together with a crochet slip stitch took about 20 minutes. It felt fast and it was very satisfying to see the biiiiig pile of squares turn into a small one. The crochet seam looks pretty neat from the back as well.

What isn't quite as nice is all those ends to weave in! I tackled the ends on two of the big blocks and found that getting rid of the extraneous ends takes about the same amount of time as it did for me to sew the block together. So the next few hours of afghan-dedicated crafting time will be spent on that inglorious little task. Then we make rows!

After a hectic day during which the baby didn't nap at the right time, the boys didn't get going at the right time, and I picked the absolute wrong time to run out of diapers, I've finally made it to the computer!

Christmas crafting has continued here, with one more afghan square completed and the next underway.

Only three more of these variegated squares left to knit and I'll have all the squares I need to sew up the afghan. Unfortunately, when I bought the yarn (all those months/year ago!) I didn't have the 16-variegated-squares-through-the-middle plan yet. Nor did I know exactly how many squares I'd get out of each skein (answer: about three in the solid colors, give or take a couple of yards, but only two and half from the variegated colorway). And so I am one skein short of completing the variegated squares. Naturally, none of the local stores have that colorway in stock right now. Jimmy Beans to the rescue!

They sent it super fast, which means I should be able to finish the knitting this weekend. Hooray! See you on Monday with all 64 squares in hand. As for now, I'm at sixty-one and counting....

Thanks to Rita, who included a link in a comment to my last post about crocheting squares together, I decided to give myself a break on this afghan and do a simple crocheted slip stitch to join the small squares into big four-patch squares. (The prospect of mattress stitching 64 squares together was starting to depress me.) I took a break from knitting the last few squares to get started by sewing the four large center squares together.

I'm still undecided on how to arrange them though. My original idea was to have the variegated squares form an "x" through the center of the whole quilt like so....

But I kinda also like this look with the variegated squares forming a box around the solids which meet in the center.

No need to decide just yet thankfully. I've still got plenty of knitting and sewing to do. The tally is now sixty squares and counting....

How to arrange 64 blocks of 8 colors plus one variegated in an afghan in an interesting pattern such that the same color doesn't ever meet up with itself? It's afghan sudoku!

With this afghan, I decided that I want it to be made up of four-patches, that is, larger blocks combining two squares each of two different colors (see my earlier posts this week to see some of the four-patches). This lets the diagonal mitre lines come together to form an "x" through the center of each four-patch. Since the entire afghan is also a square (8 squares by 8 squares), I've also been toying with the idea of having 16 variegated squares form a larger "x" through the middle of the afghan. With eight colors, that means each color will appear once in a four-patch with the variegated colorway along the diagonal. The trick is to figure out how to arrange the other colors so the same color doesn't end up being repeated in the same row or column and so that the overall look is pleasing. I can try to solve the first problem on paper, but for the second, there's no other way but to lay them all out and see how they look.

This is going to take a while. I'm up to fifty-four squares and counting....

This one starts with some sewing. As a Christmas present for the boys' newest little cousin (another baby L born in August!), I wanted to make a little cuddly blankie with minkee, a super soft chenille-y fabric that makes me wish I were a baby again just so I could have a minkee lovey. I saw a few cute patterns on an episode of Simply Quilts that made me think, yeah, I can do this, and went off to JoAnn's armed with a 50% off coupon to see what I could find (is there any other way to go to JoAnn's?!). I found this kit to make a cuddle quilt with a cute flannel print, some satin and lace and minkee.

I wasn't really planning on doing patchwork and using a bunch of different fabrics, but I simply couldn't resist those funny floating bunnies! I watched the Simply Quilts episode again, spent an eternity cutting those squares to size (aaaaack, cutting those satin squares was like trying to cut water!), and took a close look at several of original patterns from the designer on Simply Quilts to decide how to turn the JoAnn's kit (oh, only $9.99 with my coupon!) into exactly what I wanted. I really wanted to put the minkee on the back instead of using it as a border so ended up having just enough minkee to make the quilt 18" x 24". Perfect size for a lovey: not to big for a little one to drag around and still not too small to keep little one warm in the stroller on a chilly day.

So glad that this was not my first quilting project! It sure was helpful having a little practice when it came time to sew those squares together. And my walking foot, looooooove my walking foot! Anyhoo, the minkee lovey came out great and I gotta wrap it up or I'm going to rub it raw, it feels so good!

Sooooo (this is where we get back to the afghan) after all this sewing, when I finally decided that the manos afghan needed one more color, I naturally thought, pink!

Manos color #24 joining the pile

I'm at 52 squares (and one Christmas gift!) and counting....

I'm no mathematical genuis and I haven't checked with my protractor or anything, but something tells me that middle mitre ain't 45 degrees! After about 48 squares, I sort of lost my mitre mojo and knit a dud. I was cruising along and then got near the end and realized that I had waaaaay more stitches on one side of the "center" line than the other. Whooops. I did some serious fudging on this one. And it shows. There'll be no keeping that one if I want lovely little matching mitre lines in my squares.

cream (Manos color #14) and multi (Manos color #113)

Adding the one measly mitre I finished last night and minus this one mangled mitre, I'm still at fifty-one and counting....

While I'm working this week on finishing up these mitered squares for the afghan for my in-laws, I thought I'd focus on some of my favorite (and not so favorite) squares of the bunch. Today, one of my faves.

Did you ever listen to Winter Wonderland and wonder exactly what shade of brown "parson brown" was? Uh, I did. Never really asked myself why we would want to pretend that the snowman was brown or what that had to do with him marrying us, but I was a kid, you know, and when you're a kid you let those little inconsistencies go. I think I'd imagined that a parson was like a bird or something, maybe like a partridge ("hey, they're both in Christmas songs, so it must be right!" went my kid logic). Yeah, parson brown like cardinal red, that makes total sense. At some point I managed to escape my kid logic, put the two lines together and have that moment where you realize you've been thinking of something wrong your whole life, but I have to admit that when I listen to that song, I still hear "parson" as an adjective at first. It makes me smile to catch myself thinking about the brown snowman.

And because it's Christmas-time and I just love love love the brown in this afghan (Manos color "M"), it sort of tickles me to think of it as the elusive parson brown.

Parson Brown and his brethren

Almost forgot to report my progress: fifty-one and counting...

My mitre mania weekend was a huge success! Here was the stack of afghan squares as it stood at the beginning of last week: 20 squares.

Here it was this Saturday: 42 squares.

And here it is this morning: 50 squares!

"TAKE US TO YOUR SEAMER"

I was a mitre making machine! I made 30 squares in the last 6 days, 28 in the last 5! It turns out they go much faster if you don't start them off incorrectly every time. I got about a quarter of the way into the first three before I realized I was working in stockinette and not garter stitch. Doh, double doh, and doh doh doh! How do you do that three times in a row?! Once I convinced my hands that we didn't need to purl that first row, I found myself cranking out squares and winding new skeins of yarn at a record pace. And now I only have 14 squares left to knit. Time to start worrying about how to put them all together. Did you see all those ends?!

Fifty and counting....

Since I've started making mitered squares again, I've been able to get about 1 1/2 squares done each day. No matter how hard I've tried, somehow I just can't make it through that second square at the end of the night without falling asleep. Now, I know I said 'one square at a time', BUT then I crunched the numbers. If I have 22 squares and I'm going for, let's say, 64, I need 42 more. At 1 1/2 squares per day, that's one full month until I'm done knitting. Aaaaack, we're flying in a month and I sure can't do all the sewing at my in-laws! Even two squares a day would take me 3 weeks, leaving only one week for seaming. Prooooobably not enough.

So my new plan is to crunch out like 20 squares over this long Thanksgiving weekend. Then I can slow back down to the more reasonable pace of 1 1/2 squares a day and still give myself a couple of weeks for seaming. I've already gotten started on my mitre-mania weekend.

Two and a half squares in cream. This is the last of the eight colors I chose for the blanket. Once I have a few of every color, I can start laying them out and thinking about a pattern. But first things first, knitting.

For now, I'm at twenty-four and counting....

The big knitting project for this holiday season is.... well, it's the same big knitting project as last season, only that I'm going to actually try to knit it this year... the mitered square manos afghan for my in-laws.

This is where I was last March: twenty squares. After a 20 month pause (I did write a book and have a baby during that time!), I've finally picked up the yarn again. Two more squares completed and I hope I'm back in the rhythm.

I had originally planned on making 80 (yes, eighty!) squares. They're only 6 inches square, so that makes a good 4 x 5 ft. blanket, not humongous or anything. Still, given my total lack of progress and the remaning time until Christmas, I've revised my goal a little. Now I'm shooting for a minimum of 48 squares, which would make a 3 x 4 ft. blanket. I'd be thrilled to get 64 done, making a 4 x 4 ft. blanket. And I get a gold star if I manage 72 or, unthinkable, the originally planned 80. You see, we're actually going to visit the in-laws this year for Christmas, so if I get it done, that means I can bring it with us on the plane. No expensive shipping, no worries about it getting lost in the mail, no worries about the in-laws paying any customs fees, blah, blah, blah. Nope, this is THE YEAR.

Twenty-two and counting....

Just because I can't knit any afghan squares right now, doesn't mean I can't pick up some more manos when I see it. I'd been looking for a blue to add to the blanket and I found just the right one at Black Sheep Knitting in Needham last week.

I've now got the variegated and seven solid colors. I think I may be done shopping for the afghan.

And you know what else they have there at Black Sheep besides a huge new shipment of Manos? They have the Synchronicity yarn from Alchemy that I'm using for my Ella Rae t-shirt sweater. (It's at the bottom left in the very bottom picture on this page!) And they're having a sale on all Rowan until tax day.

I don't know how I left that store with just the manos!

After gray days and everything being all yellow, I spent an evening with the brown manos - the only color I didn't bring with me to Germany - and have three more squares to add to the afghan pile. I think I may like the brown best of all so far.

That takes me to a whopping total of seven skeins used and 20 squares knit. That's almost a third of the squares done - I can't believe it! What I can believe, however, is that making these squares is hurting my hand. It just occurred to me that by knitting only mitered garter stitch squares and short-row socks recently, I haven't purled in weeks. Nothing but knits. Can you spell RSI? Ouch! So despite the fact that all I want to do is crank out more squares, and the fact that I've found two more colors to add to the blanket,

welcoming #67 (green) and #14 (cream) to the basket

I have to put the Manos (and the Regia, sniff, sniff) aside for a bit and start something new. Something with purls.

I spent several weeks one summer in Berlin many years ago and there was a street musician who would sing everyday by the Gedächtniskirche with a guitar, a drum on his back that he would bang by stomping his feet, and a harmonica on a holder on his shoulder. He would always sing the Lemon Tree song by Fool's Garden. I don't know why, but I really liked that song.

I used to say the word lemony a lot just because it felt good in my mouth.

And my son B's love of yellow is legendary.

So I guess it's no surprise that I love these yellow squares for the manos afghan.

The weather's been gray and rainy and snowy for the first half of our stay here in Germany. It is winter, after all. And it is Germany. So I say, when the weather gives you gray days, make gray squares!

That'll cheer you up! And so will this: In the solid color Manos, I'm getting three full squares out of one skein. (Only two and a half from the variegated skein, for whatever reason.) That means that I should be able to get a decent sized afghan with about 20 skeins of Manos. That's not soooooo so bad. It could have been much worse.

And if you're a 4 1/2 year-old boy, nothing will cheer you up on a gray day like an electric train set!

Bring it on, German weather! We are prepared.

Here I am working on hubby's LMKG zip raglan on his parents' couch. Yes, the couch that should be home to a new Manos afghan come Christmas. See the curtains I have to deal with? (They're a little more pink than in the picture - you can see the pink in one of the pictures from yesterday.) Okay, but look at the old blanket next to the sweater. Variegated or not, garter stitch or stockinette, stripes or solid, the new afghan will definitely be better than that!

And it will be. I worked through all my issues and I've finally decided that the afghan will be garter stitch with standard mitre shaping (one set of mitered decreases as given here), without stripes, but with variegated squares.

And now I'm flying on these!

Well, yesterday, at least. And I don't like a one of them.

I'm trying to choose the right mitered square technique so I can start this afghan. I've got the size I want finally, but am still not sure of a few things:

1. I personally prefer the look of stockinette squares, especially stockinette squares that are seamed together. But I think I may just like the mitres in the garter stitch better.
2. I love the idea of the mitered square with a full "X" in it (with four sets of mitre decreases) but I'm not satisfied with the way the seam looks in either garter or stockinette stitch.
3. My old dislike of variegated yarns is creeping back. I don't like how the variegated yarn looks in stockinette at all and furthermore, I can't decide how to incorporate the variegated squares into the whole. I'm tempted to nix the variegated all together or maybe just use it for an edging.
4. I haven't quite convinced myself that simple solid squares are okay. Every now and then, I think that I should do stripes. I don't want a pattern that looks busy though. And I don't want to have to plan every square ahead of time.

What does all that add up to? Little progress, much frustration. Time to stop knitting and do something else.

Roar.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one square.

The first prototype of the mitered squares for my manos afghan project. I think I want the squares to be bigger, maybe 8"x8". This one only came out to be about 7"x7". And I may try stockinette instead of garter stitch, just cause I love it so much more!

So how many of these should I need to make a good sized blanket to cover someone on a couch??

No knitting around here. I'm sick, sick, sick, and my nose is running like a faucet. It's all just a little too yucky for knitting. But I can still plan new projects!

how will we look with gray sofas and pink curtains?

I'm starting to pick a peck or two of Manos to make an afghan for my in-laws for next Christmas. I've never taken on a big afghan project, so I wanted to get as early a start as possible. Hubby has approved the colors above and likes my pattern idea.

from Rowan's Classic Weekend

I won't be doing stripes, but I just love how the little x forms in the middle of each mitered square! I can't go too wild with pattern because the in-laws have pink and white striped curtains all over their living room. There's no competing with that pattern-wise, so I decided that subtle would be best. Plus, mitered squares are wicked fun! I don't know yet how big to make the squares or how many squares I'll need, but I'm so excited already.

To be honest, I NEVER thought that I'd be doing an afghan project with squares that need to be sewn together, but after I participated in last year's Mason-Dixon Afghan Sew-Up, I've deluded myself into believing that it's possible. I've got twelve months, right?