A few years ago Knitter's Magazine did a series of sampler afghans: the Great American Afghan, the Great North American Afghan, the Great American Kid's Afghan and the Great American Aran Afghan. They held contests and asked designers to submit blocks. I want to make both the Great American Aran Afghan and the Great North American Afghan this year. Both have some challenging blocks and I really could use a challenge.

Here is a photo of the Great American Aran Afghan.



I'm going to do mine in tomato red Wool of the Andes. I also want to at least start on the Great North American Afghan which has some fun colorwork squares like this one knit in the round:




To buy the patterns for these afghans go HERE. To see the Great American Aran Afghan Knitalong with plenty of progress photos, go HERE.

So far this year I've planned on knitting these two afghans, the Starmore Fair Isle pillow, some Latvian mittens, along with all the usual socks and mittens. Plus I plan on knitting and designing items for a colorwork sock booklet (yes, the ruffled socks pictured last week will be included), a hats for kids booklet, and a Christmas patterns booklet all to benefit rabbit rescue.

Perhaps I should change the name of this blog to Delusional Knitting???

I'm running late today so I'll wait until tomorrow to talk about the afghan. In the meantime, here are the Log Cabin Socks from Handknit Holidays for DH. Because he has skinny feet I used the women's size (48 sts), made sure the sock cuff was the required 8" (otherwise he won't wear them - sigh) , and used my usual heels and toes that work for our feet. The yarn is Peruvian Highland wool and the socks took about 2 1/2 skeins for his size 10 1/2 foot.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ

This photo can only mean:

A. My gauge is WAY off
B. Knitting for the rabbits is taking a new, slightly disturbing, turn
C. I'm also pregnant with Brad Pitt's child
D. I've started the Great American Aran Afghan from Knitter's.

Sometimes I think I learn more from my mistakes than from my successes. Here is a Fair Isle sock I began with a picot hem. Fair Isle gives me fits because of the difficulty of color selection. As it turns out I really liked the colors for this project.




What I absolutely can't stand is the actual pattern. I realized that I much prefer colorwork where the pattern is easily made out rather than muddied as it can be in some Fair Isle designs. That must be why I have knit many more Scandinavian designs.

They didn't quite fit in the scanner (blame my big feet!) but here are the ruffled socks I designed. I ended up liking the colors after all.

My Olympics knitting project is going to be Alice Starmore's Celtic Keynot pillow. I've had the kit for several years and started it once only to realize my gauge was way off. DH just bought himself the leather chair of his dreams and the pillow will look good with the new chair. The price for the kit now is astronomical and probably about twice as much as I paid for it. I dearly wish I'd purchased more of her kits back when the dollar was stronger. I have a photo of the yarns from the kit but unfortunately Blogger won't let me upload photos today.

Lately I've been drinking a lot of tea. Here is my version of chai using green tea. I think most chai recipes use way too much cinnamon and I like this better because you can taste the cardamom.

GREEN TEA CHAI

You can also use black tea or decaf for this recipe.

4 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1 Tbsp. green cardamom pods
1 tsp. whole cloves
2 Tbsp sliced fresh or frozen gingerroot (I slice it up fresh then freeze it for teas)
1 tsp. black peppercorns (optional)
4 green teabags

Bring water to a boil. Add cinnamon stick, cardamom, cloves, and gingerroot and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, add green tea bags, cover and steep for 10 minutes.

Serve with milk (dairy or non-dairy works) and the sweetener of your choice.

A few weeks ago Saartje showed the contents of her knitting bag. Currently I don't use a knitting bag but instead use baskets so I can see all the yarn colors I'm using at one time. To hold all my knitting accessories, I use this container. I believe it is a tackle box for fishermen and cost me less than $2.




I use this container for my measuring tapes, stitch holders, stitch markers, tapestry needles, crochet hooks, small packets of Eucalan, Burt's Bees lemon cuticle cream, bobbins, and a small amount of buffalo fiber from a schoolteacher at the Waldorf school on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation.

I do have one bag I keep around for sentimental reasons. I received this bag during an Aran knitting class with Alice Starmore when she did her tour of the U.S. to promote her Broad Bay yarns.