serenity now

My mother-in-law B loves the color red. I think for the last five or so years, I've given her something with red for her birthday, or Christmas... and I was wondering if I was pushing it by making a huge red afghan for her birthday this year, but decided to go for it anyway. I'm glad I did. She immediately recognized that I had made a scarf for her out of the same yarn a couple of years ago, and she wears this scarf a lot, so I was hoping she wouldn't mind more of the same. She didn't. :)

This pattern, #19 from the Big Book of Afghan Knits, was super easy to figure out, but time consuming. It's one of those patterns where you are psyched to begin knitting, and then you realize how long it takes to do just one row, and before you know it, you're rolling your eyes and throwing your head back, murmuring "serenity now!" Which is ironic, as this pattern is called "Serenity"...

I began this back in October, and just finished it last week. Despite the slow-go, I really enjoyed knitting up an afghan for the first time in my life... I'd love to make another one, now that I know what to expect. There are 24 patterns in this book, all of them lovely, and they vary in complexity. I think I chose the easiest one to begin with!

I used Simply Soft's Autumn Red on size 17 needles. This, and all the patterns, calls for doubled-up yarn, so you need about 12 skeins to make a full size afghan. I only used about half of that to make this throw, however.

I hope you are well and warm where you are. I have some fun posts to share with you this next week; hopefully baby will let up a little on zapping my energy so I can play catch up!