A Carolina Crochet Project

One thing that happens when you have kids who are enrolled in online classes... you get the opportunity to meet and become friends with some of the most outstanding people.  In the last five years that my kids have been "attending" Veritas Press, we have literally sent our daughter across the country to meet up with her school friends.  Minnesota, Idaho, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, South Carolina... the list goes on.

This past summer, Emily was blessed with a trip to Greenville, SC, where she got to see several friends who live in the area.  It is because of this trip that I made this afghan.  I should state... this was my first afghan and I am pretty dern proud of how it turned out!

The stitch is a basket weave that I took from a baby blanket pattern on ravelry.com. Basket Weave Baby Blanket Pattern What I didn't know was how substantial the basket weave is.  This blanket will keep the most chill-prone person toasty warm!  It  devoured yarn at an alarming rate and consequently is quite heavy.  The pattern of stripes was chosen purely from my personal aesthetic preference.  I am not a fan of the zigzag 70's afghan nor the skimpy stripes.  I love the color combination and although the colors might suggest a Christmas theme, I think it could be used anytime. 

     

When changing colors, I stitched an initial row of double crochets across with the new color.  Basically using that last row of the previous color as my "initial chain" and continuing at the beginning of the ravelry pattern.  The green has ten completed basket weaves (20 rows) plus the initial row of dc making the total 21 rows.  Each of the other colors only has 9 completed basket weaves (18 rows) plus the initial dc row making it 19 rows total.  The color pattern went: green, white, red, green, red, white, green.  

The border, I agonized over.  While I wanted to try a different stitch with more of a scalloped edge... I decided that it wouldn't be consistent with the strong presence of the stripes and weave.  In other words, the scalloped edging would be too frilly for the manly stripes. Instead, I went with a simple single crocheted border.  Three rows of sc with the second and third rows stitched only in the back loop to give a little ridge look.  I crocheted three sc in each of the corners as well.  

So this Carolina Crochet Project is my family's thank you to the family who made Emily's trip possible, and so wonderfully memorable.  Thank you! I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed making it.

~The Pools

Here is the afghan in its new home :)
Looks like it was meant to be there.