By: pamgrushkin
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College Math

Thing #2 is going to college this fall. I’ve knit or crocheted each kid a college afghan. I really left this one to the last minute. Kind of like cramming for a test. Maybe I was hoping it would knit itself.

 I decided to keep it super simple and make it a garter stitch afghan in bulky yarn. She liked the Cascade 128 Superwash (Bulky: 100% Superwash Merino, 128 yards). The only request she made is that it have the letter E for her school. Her school colors are basically navy blue, cranberry, and white. We agreed on blue as the main color, a red E, and a white border around the E. Then I’ll use the leftover red and white around the border.

I did a swatch and then decided to go up a needle size.  I want to get this sucker done as fast as I can.  I’m playing beat the clock.  I estimated the stitches based on my true gauge and then guestimated a little less to account for going up a needle size.
She wanted it to be as big as a tv throw I crocheted her when she was younger.  I thought, ‘great, that want’s that big’.  The d@$m thing grew to 50″ x 70″.  That’s not happening.  It’s going to be 50″ x 60″ and that’s because I put on too many sts when I guestimated.
I knit to the end of one skein which equaled 4″.  Then I did some math to figure out how many skeins I would need based on the measurements.  Approximately 15 skeins.

To map out the E for the Intarsia, I cropped the E out of a picture of the school letters and printed it on 8.5″ x 11″ paper.  Then I took a piece of graph paper and copied the E onto the graph paper. Can I just say I was inordinately pleased with myself for this. It’s the little things.

The graph paper was not to the scale of my gauge, so I “eyeballed” it.  Not bad. Close enough for government as the expression goes.  Does anyone know where that expression came from?

Tucker still likes to eat yarn.  He has caught a small ball of yarn that fell off my lap. I’d say he has a rather smug look on his face, wouldn’t you?

There are 23″ left to knit and 26 days to knit them.  If I keep to a minimum of an inch a day, I should be able to avoid weaving ends on the drive up.