details on the alpaca afghan

So this was a long slow burn of a project but the end result was worth it.

I bought this expensive awesome yarn at Loopy Yarns in Chicago to celebrate our new beach house. The colors reminded my of the living room and the water. Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Chunky is a pleasure to knit. Yummy all around.

After a bunch of swatching from a stitchionary, I found the bamboo stitch pattern complimented the quick color change of the yarn. And the wrong side looked fairly reasonable for an afghan.

Loopy Yarns saved the day for me too. I started knitting and realized that I needed at least 10 skeins rather than the nine that I bought in the shop. All it took was a quick phone call and they quickly sent me the last two skeins they had (same lot number too). Yeah!

With a critical eye I would say that I bound off the bottom too tightly because it does not match the tension of the very loose cable cast-on that I used. I bound off in purl on the front side in order to get a similar look as the cable cast-on. That worked well but I bound off too tightly because I was running low on yarn. Blocking was fairly helpful in tweaking this but not a cure.

Here's the right side - nice colors!:


Here is the wrong side which is attractive,too:



You can see from the picture below that the final afghan is a pretty good length and width. I didn't bother to measure the final dimensions. I don't care at this point. Its big enough and I am not reworking it. Best not to block on the bed without shutting the door to keep Seymore out.

My design, if you will:

Materials: 11 skeins of Misti Alpaca Chunky Handpaints in CP05 Havasu. Size 10US needles

Gage: 8 rows = 1.57 inches, 13 sts = 4 inches

Instructions:

Cable cast-on 155 stitches. Based on my gage swatch this would be approximately 46.5 inches wide. [This yields 3 sts for Garter boarder on each side (6 sts total) plus 140 +9 stitches for the Bamboo stitch patterned panel.]

Knit 4 rows in garter (2 ridges)

Next row: Knit 3 sts for Garter boarder. Continue in bamboo pattern until the last 3 stitches. Knit the last 3 sts for the garter boarder.

Bamboo pattern (8 row repeat, 14 sts +9 for pattern repeat; from The Harmony Guides, Knit and Purl : 250 Stitches to Knit, edited by Erika Knight)

Row 1 and every odd row (right side): P2, *k5, p2; repeat from * to end
Row 2: K9, *p5, k9; repeat from * to end
Row 4 and 8: K2, *p5, k2; repeat from * to end
Row 6: K2, p5, *K9, p5; repeat from * to last 2 sts, k2

Repeat these 8 rows including the 3 st garter boarder on each side (knit beginning and end 3 sts all rows) until you have run through 3/4th of the last skein of yarn. This is an estimate – double check using a measured length of yarn or weight of yarn. Knit 4 rows garter. Cast-off.