First Afghan Complete!!

DONE! (except for the blocking)

I finished the clouds as I described in my previous blog.

I then knitted the border in a nice "Antique Taupe" color to make it look like a picture frame as my fiance had suggested. The book didn't make any mention of how to handle the corners, so at first I was a little perplexed about how to do them. I considered knitting the sides long enough to fill the corners and the top and bottom just wide enough for the afghan itself. I didn't like the idea though. It just wouldn't look right. Then it hit me! Why not knit the corner as I went and make the entire border a single piece? So that's what I did. As you can see, I also made it so that the corner has a diagonal line like the corner of a picture frame would have. Here's what I did. I knit every row. On each right side row I simply knit one less stitch than the previous right side row, left unknit stitches on the left needle, turned, and knit back on the wrong side. After getting down to one stitch, I simply did the same process in reverse, and started picking up one of the left behind stitches on each right side row. In knitting terms it would look something like this...

Row 1 (wrong side): K10

Row 2: k9, leave remaining stitch on what is now your left needle, turn

Row 3: k9

Row 4: k8, leave 2 stitches on left needle, turn

Row 5: k8

Row 6: k7, leave 3 stitches on left needle, turn

.

etc.

.

Row 20: k2, leave 8 stitches on left needle, turn

Row 21: k2

Row 22: k3, leave 7 stitches on left needle, turn

.

etc.

With the border complete, it was then time to "sew" the foot pocket and attach the border. 8 hours of matress stitching later...

As much as I'd love to send it to my neice now, we've decided that we're going to hold on to it until September to enter it in the Tri-State Fair. Maybe I can win a blue ribbon to accompany the afghan.

It will wind up just in time to be a bit of an early second birthday present.

=)