a long history of afghans

My crochet upbringing began when my mother checked out a book from the library and taught me from it. But she only taught me two stitches: chain stitch and slip stitch (which are functionally analogous to the foundation and nails of a house).

Amazingly I made a hat with only nails and foundation. Not to say that it was a good hat... I finally learned how to actually crochet when my aunt Stone got me an invitation to one of her friend's crocheting circles.

I really got into crochet during highschool when I started making granny square afghans, from squares like the one pictured to the right. Then and now I make squares when I watch TV or during class (but I swear I'm totally paying attention).


This is the third afghan I made with our darling cat (at the time) Sophia. I don't have pictures of the first two, but they basically had that same mismatched look.

I made each of these blankets for Whatcom County's Project Warm-Up. The volunteer center collects yarn donations for volunteers to knit or crochet into hats, scarves, blankets, etc... Most of the yarn that was donated were less favorable colors, so I just tried to go for a general color scheme.

I used a cross-stitch pattern (potted plant with heart-shaped flowers) for the design of this afghan that went to my mom. Each square is 2in on a side, which made for a zillion squares that took forever to sew together. The finished feel of the blanket is rather stiff as well. For yarn, I used Caron one-pound because it's the cheapest stuff I could find.


"Griffin in Space" was made for my good friend Angela, also with Caron one-pound yarn. To create the design I drew the griffin full-sized on taped-together sheets of newsprint. Occasionally I would lay down my massive afghan to check how closely I was following the pattern. That idea turned out to be a disaster! Note the humpback :-(

Using just a single crochet stitch and changing colors as needed meant that I was working with the full size of afghan (as opposed to making smaller squares), and thus I could only work on it at home.

"Gothic," so called because I used Priscilla Hewitt's gothic square pattern (I can email it to you if you want it, but I can't find it posted online anymore), was made for my good friend Kelly.

This was the first afghan I made trying to be environmental. I spent a good hundred dollars on organic cotton yarn from Fabulous Yarn. Granted organic cotton yarn is incredibly soft and workable, I will be trying to go for more thrifty solutions in the future.


"Autumn," which is a bit cacophonous, was made for my boyfriend's mother Allie. At this point in my crocheting career I have quite the stash of leftover yarn, so I decided to use as much as possible in an afghan.

I have pictures for two other afghans I've made that I need to find... ;-)