There is a particular pleasure in watching a piece take shape gradually as the sections come together, and it is greater still when the finished thing is made entirely by your own hands. An afghan is the classic demonstration of it.
Why an afghan appeals
It is a substantial object. Unlike a scarf or a hat, a blanket has presence – it goes on a sofa or a bed and it is used every day for years.
It is also a project where the repetition is the point. Once the pattern is established the hands work without supervision, and the piece grows across many quiet evenings. People often describe an afghan as the most companionable of projects for exactly that reason.
Before starting
Three things decide whether an afghan gets finished.
Choose the construction to suit how you work. One piece has no assembly but becomes heavy and unwieldy, with rows so long that each takes an evening by the end. Motifs are portable and finish in satisfying stages but require joining – use join-as-you-go and that largely disappears. Strips sit between the two.
Choose a stitch you enjoy. You will work it many thousands of times. A stitch that is mildly irritating on a swatch becomes intolerable across a blanket.
Buy all the yarn at once, in matching dye lots. This is the regret people voice most often. Yarn is dyed in batches, and a lot change halfway across a blanket shows as a visible band that cannot be worked around.
Estimating quantity
Make one motif, or a strip’s worth of rows, and note how much yarn it used. Multiply up, then add a ball.
That is far more reliable than any general rule, because tension varies enormously between crocheters.
Keeping it even
Count your stitches at the end of every row for the first ten. A blanket gaining one stitch per row finishes as a trapezoid, and there is no fixing it at the end.
If you are making motifs, compare the first against the last before joining – tension drifts across a long project.
Weave in ends as you go
A striped or motif blanket generates a great many, and leaving them all to the finish is how projects get abandoned within sight of the end.
Yarn choice
Machine washable, and soft. An afghan is against skin for hours and it will need washing. A blanket that cannot go in the machine ends up in a cupboard, however beautiful it is.
