A while back I got sick. The kind of sick where you spend all but a few hours a day in bed for several days. And I was told that this was going to be the norm for me for about a week. Ugh. So that first day I hopped online and started ordering yarn like a crazy person. And I got expedited shipping since I wanted to get my hands busy as quickly as possible. My very first afghan to start up was this purple beauty you see here.

Now, unfortunately what they sent me wasn’t all the same dye lot which I didn’t notice until after I laid my afghan out. That stinks but I think I can live with it. But keep this in mind if ordering online. I assumed that every skein would be from the same lot and you see how that panned out for me. After all, ass out of you, ass out of me…

Which reminds me of a really cute story. A little girl my Mimmie knows, about 3 or 4, recently learned what an “ass” was from Sunday school. Now her parents are having a very difficult time getting her to understand when it is appropriate and when it isn’t to use the word. In fact, she’s started calling just about any animal an ass including the dog and when he was misbehaving she got all huffy and asked the company “Would you just look at that ass?” But back to the crafting already!

I was pleasantly surprised when I whipped this sucker up in less than 7 episodes of the Tudors. Yep, after about 6 hours of hooking I had a lovely new accent piece for my recently purchased bedroom chair (also pictured). Now the fringe, however is another hour onto this project if you want to add it. And why wouldn’t you? It’s fab!

You will need:

• Chunky yarn (I used 11 skeins of Lion Brand Hometown USA in Portland Wine)
• P crochet hook (I used the one from this set)
• Skills to rock the V Double Crochet Stitch <- click for tutorial!

To start make your chain a length of 82. Continue the V Double Crochet stitch until you get the width you require. Add fringe if desired.

To make fringe you will need:

• more yarn
• book
• scissors

Take your yarn and place about 2 inches inside of the front of your book and close it tight.

Start wrapping your yarn around the book keeping the strands close together, but not overlapping.

We do this (and use the book, actually) to ensure that each piece of fringe is really, really close in length to the others.

Use your scissors to trim the yarn. Cut along the inside edge of one of the covers to ensure a nice, straight cut.

Continue making your fringe until you have a nice pile. I actually used an entire skein of the Hometown USA and had just a small pile left over.

Take as many strands as you’d like in your fringe and find the center of them together. I find that I really like the look of 2, sometimes 3 when dealing with bulky yarn but this is totally about preference.

Push the loops from where you found the centers through the afghan where you want the fringe to appear.

Pull the cut ends through the loops from where you found the centers. Here I’m putting my hand through the loops and grabbing the ends to pull through.

Grab the ends and pull to tighten.

And fringe #1 is complete. Only about 100 or so left to go!

Now technically you should trim your yarn at this point to get a nice, clean edge. Unfortunately as one too many sets of wonky bangs has proven to me, I don’t cut things in a straight line very well. Which is why I just trim the very obvious stragglers. Because a few months later, this stuff won’t grow out enough for me to try again!

I picked the purple color to specifically go with my beige chair and my $1 cashmere pillow!

Oh, and can you spot the kitty and poor paint job in this post? Oh, and the obvious lack of fringe on the other side of the afghan, but dude, the light was dwindling on me! 🙂

All in all, not bad for a day’s work. Now I’m starting on another afghan for my Momma and you best believe I’m counting the hours. But it’s looking good for bringing you another quick afghan post!