PlazaJen: Passion Knit

My friend Kristin has made the assertion on more than one occasion that I have illegal immigrant children living in my attic and I make them do my knitting. What can I say? Some people drink; I knit like a fiend.

I give you the final six blocks of Lizard Ridge:



And after I finished the final block, I began the arduous fun of seaming. As I stated earlier, I'm sewing three blocks into a strip, and then blocking them. After they're done blocking, they get seamed into the final afghan. The seaming was a Battle Royale - I did my first three following the Principles of Sewing, which in this case, is WRONG. You can't line up the ridges to their mirror end - these pieces fit together like a puzzle! So where there's an outward curve, you must line it up with an inward curve. I'm sure this information is in the directions/pattern? I realized this morning I didn't bother to look at it again. So I ripped those two seams out. I was using a tapestry needle & trying various stitches - whip stitch and semi-mattress stitch - neither made me happy. Since I'm a pretty speedy slip-stitch crocheter, I tried that out. That looked a bit better, though given the nature of the pattern & the yarn, you will still see the dark purple Cascade peeking through. It's not like I've got a lot of "color concerns" going on, using all these different colors!

Once I got going on seaming, I couldn't stop. Here's the finished pile of three-block strips:



Notes Thus Far & What I'd Do Differently:
-I needed two extra skeins of Noro to finish the afghan; it might be a function of me being a looser knitter.
-There's been discussion about doing the afghan in panels, not blocks - I think it would work, and obviously would cut down on the amount of time needed to seam. (Though you'd need a bigger space for blocking.) I think you'd want to plan out your color choices a little more if you did it this way.
-I'm still wrestling with the idea of putting a border on this. If I do a border, I fear it will require crocheting, which I'm not a fan of.
-Also wrestling with putting on a backing - possibly wool felt? A backing will require some sort of quilting - I was thinking maybe 6 buttons, placed in the center of each four-square. I'm not sure if I'll just whip-stitch it to the backing? There's a lot to figure out if I go the backing route.... or at least I need to get those kids back out of the attic......