Moorish Mosaic Afghan: DONE!
Y'all, The Year of Making has me ON FIRE!
I finished a WIP that I started almost 5 years ago! I am going to admit to having motivation outside of Year of Making to get this puppy done... I got a new blue chair! Last winter we finally got a little propane stove for the dining room and I "had" to wait until this year to get it a chair... after I ordered it I knew it was going to need a throw, and suddenly I remembered that I had 60% of the motifs done for the Moorish Mosaic Afghan, now that's luck!
Back when I worked at Schaefer Yarn I decided I wanted to learn to crochet, then I stumbled upon Interweave Crochet 2009 and fell in love with the Moorish Mosaic Afghan. We had just introduced Nichole at Schaefer and I thought it would be PERFECT! (Nevermind that the pattern called for sport weight and Nichole is Fingering...) I spent days, or maybe weeks?, going through the stockroom piling up colors that I loved together.
I ended up with 11 skeins total:
3 in Julia Child
1 in Apple
1 in Peter
1 in Spruce
1 in Stone
1 in Elizabeth Zimmermenn
1 in Green Jeans
1 in Chamomile
1 in an insanely gorgeous OAK purple
Did you read above that this was my first real crochet project? Yes, I am a little cray cray, but I did take a break to make a few other simpler things along the way. There is no better way to learn than to dive right in, right?
It was a great summer travel project, I took the motifs on many family camping trips and slowly but surely they started to pile up.
My final blanket ended up being 4 motifs wide by 6 motifs long as I wanted a rectangle! This is a bit smaller than the pattern called for, but one thing I learned is that crochet is easy to "fudge"!
I've been asked more than once if I had a plan for this... and the answer is NO. I did make an even number of squares distributed over all the colors (except Stone), and other than that I just went for it!
My girl and I had a GREAT time laying it out looking for the perfect balance, is was a layout party, and we kept changing our minds until we both knew it was right.
And then joining it took forever...
And then weaving in the ends took longer than that...
But in the end, it was TOTALLY worth it.
Want to see more of my Year of Making? Follow me on Instagram, it's my new favorite place to be!
(and yes.... I'm already thinking that I want to have another epic crochet project for the next 5 years... maybe the Babette Blanket?)
I ended up with 11 skeins total:
3 in Julia Child
1 in Apple
1 in Peter
1 in Spruce
1 in Stone
1 in Elizabeth Zimmermenn
1 in Green Jeans
1 in Chamomile
1 in an insanely gorgeous OAK purple
It was a great summer travel project, I took the motifs on many family camping trips and slowly but surely they started to pile up.
My final blanket ended up being 4 motifs wide by 6 motifs long as I wanted a rectangle! This is a bit smaller than the pattern called for, but one thing I learned is that crochet is easy to "fudge"!
I've been asked more than once if I had a plan for this... and the answer is NO. I did make an even number of squares distributed over all the colors (except Stone), and other than that I just went for it!
My girl and I had a GREAT time laying it out looking for the perfect balance, is was a layout party, and we kept changing our minds until we both knew it was right.
And then joining it took forever...
And then weaving in the ends took longer than that...
But in the end, it was TOTALLY worth it.
(and yes.... I'm already thinking that I want to have another epic crochet project for the next 5 years... maybe the Babette Blanket?)
Holy smokes, Laura. This is so gorgeous, there aren't even words.
ReplyDeleteAnd Babette! It's a classic! I've had one in progress for, um, eight years? ... Maybe Year of Making will kick me in the pants to get it out again.
Aw, thanks Kim!!!!! Babette is a classic! I think the trick is to work projects like this in waves, with goals... like 2 squares a day! That's how I managed to get this puppy done!
DeleteSo beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThanks Deb!!!!
DeleteLove the afghan! I might need to improve my crochet skills and tackle it. Did you do anything to compensate for having lighter weight yarn or did it just come out smaller?
ReplyDeleteActually I worked them at the same gauge so they came out a little less dense than the original, which makes it more airy and drapey... which I LOVE! It is still perfectly warm!
DeleteNext crochet afghan? It's going to be worsted weight!
What about the Chain Reaction blanket? http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/chain-reaction-afghan-project
ReplyDeletePretty! I love some of the motifs in that!
DeleteAwesome afghan!!!
ReplyDeletenice! what a great way to break into crochet! all those motifs, so many new skills. it looks totally awesome! I should wade thru the pit o'crafts and see what old wips I have lurking and finish some up- I'm totally inspired
ReplyDeleteso nice!!lots of love~~~<3
ReplyDeleteExcellent work. What does it take to make something moorish? Why do you call this design moorish?
ReplyDeleteThat happens to be the name of the pattern. Moorish Mosaic Afghan.
DeleteWhat I want to know is do you have a chart for this? I wish Lisa had included one with the pattern. I have had issues trying to make this without a chart!!
It’s beautiful!! What is”OAK”?
ReplyDelete