I told my cousin Adam that I was going to crochet an afghan for him and Jean for a wedding gift. We were brought up well, so he didn't object :-) Then I asked him what colors they liked. He answered that he liked shades of blue and Jean liked shades of green. I figured that an easy and fun way to combine the two preferences was by making an afghan from motifs, and I chose the "Wildflower Wrap" from Leisure Arts' "Afghans for All Seasons". The instructions for this afghan called for four different colors (aqua, rose, violet, blue) but I used four shades of blue, four shades of green, and two shades of teal/aqua. I used a paint-style program on the computer to do my layout, which worked out very well. One of the big pluses of making this afghan is that the flowers are "join as you go". One of the minuses of making this afghan is, you guessed it, that the flowers are "join as you go", rendering it not as portable as the "sew 'em later" variety of motif-based afghans. Well, I came up with at least part of a solution. I could crochet the odd-numbered rows without connecting them. Then, when I crocheted the even-numbered rows, I could connect both sides at once. Oh, and most importantly, I started and finished this afghan extra quickly so I didn't have to work on it in the heat of summer! |