Okay, so I don't know what's wrong with me, but I am pretty much unable to sit still and watch tv anymore. I mean, maybe if I'm cuddling with Kevin. But if I'm at home by myself, I need to be utterly exhausted (or riveted by the show) to be able to stand it. So usually I wander around and clean or some such, or work on an art project. But I wasn't feeling inspired by any art things, and I cleaned all day (and still have gobs of dishes left from the party, but we won't go there). So I decided it was time to start another afghan. So far, I've completed three in my life: a blue ripple one, that I made years ago and that ended up looking like a hot air balloon because I did the stitches so much tighter when I started, a dark red one that I still use, and a small white one, a baby blanket for Roshani's Zoe. It was so nice going by their place when I was in Chicago at the beginning of the month and seeing the blanket in Zoe's playpen; she apparently likes to take it and put it on her head and shoulders, making it into a cape. Works for me. :-)All the ones I've done up to now have been the kind you do in rows, basically doing the same pattern all the way across. I decided to try something different this time -- rounds! It took me a while to figure it out, since there were a couple of techniques I hadn't used before. I'm still not sure I'm always joining things right. (If you know, when I start a new color on the round, do I do a starting stitch *before* I join it? I think I have to, right? I'm not sure I understand ending a round either...) But still, I faked it well enough that it seems to be holding it together. And instead of tying knots to finish things off (as my book strictly warns me not to do and which I did on all the earlier afghans anyway), I'm actually finishing the rounds off properly, sewing the loose ends into the back of the afghan. Yay, me! That little square took me a good hour, but I think they'll go faster as I go. They'd better -- in theory, I have 179 of them to go...and then I get to join them all. Eep.
The pattern calls for always using white as the outside color, but I'm kind of tempted to just keep changing them, sticking to jewel tones. I need to get some dark blue and purple and maybe gold. That'll look good, right? Even with the white? Though I guess I could stick to what I have now -- red, green and white. It'd be a Christmas afghan. We'll see...