Day: May 23, 2011

The plan before I knit the swatch was to make an afghan out of 12-inch hexagons knit out of Manos del Uruguay and my handspun.

With the first hexagon finished, I’ve changed my mind on just about everything.

I love the demo colors so much that I no longer want to use my handspun yarn. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough Taos yarn for the entire afghan, so I’ll have to dig through my stash for a complementary yarn.

Knitting the hexagon and picking up the stitches after completing each section made me want to come up with a way to cut down on the need to knit so many sections and in turn pick up so many stitches. The easiest way to reduce the amount of hexagons needed to make an afghan would be to increase the size of each hexagon. Therefore, I plan to approximately double the size of each hexagon.

Knitting the hexagon also made me realize that the gauge didn’t match my estimate of 4 stitches per inch. Rather than a 12-inch hexagon, I ended up with a 9-inch hexagon.

I’m still unsure how I want to piece all the hexagons together. Should I make a circular afghan or a traditional rectangular afghan?

This exercise has made me hesitant about casting on for Elly’s blue and orange skirt. I really ought to knit a swatch first to make sure my gauge is accurate and to make sure the yarn is a good fit for the pattern. Sigh. And I was looking forward to starting it this weekend.