Final Touches — An Afghan for our Couch

If your interest survived the horribly lit IPhone picture of the yarn for the afghan I've just started (yes, I must get an IPhone 4 with its improved camera lighting if I'm going to go on blogging off of my phone), today I'm back with what will hopefully be better pictures of the Afghan in the earliest stages of progress.

As part of what seems to have become a never-ending redo of the first floor of our house, we decided to replace the war torn furniture, survivor of four children and numerous dogs and cats.  The new living room sofa is Rowe's Berkeley, in a hopefully indestructible graphite gray micro-velvet.  I'm indugling my inner desire for color, though, and have selected a blue-purple velvet for the bench we keep in the living room, as well as for small pillows on our chairs.  And, that selection led me to finally dye the yarn for the throw I wanted to keep on the sofa.

The yarn is a bulky weight Elliebelly yarn called Chubs.  It's dyed in the Mauvina colorway, a mix of purples with just a bit of burgundy in it.  Since I had decided to do a cabled pattern for the afghan, I didn't want a yarn that would be so colorful that it would compete with the cables.  But, I also wanted something more interesting that a solid purple.  This softly mottled yarn was my compromise.  This yarn is so thick that it's going to ruin me for other knitting — a friend who was knitting with it commented that it made her aran weight yarn feel like dental floss.  But it's beautiful and soft, and its 70% Merino/20% Alpaca/10% Silk blend ought to be just right for cool winter evenings.

I am, at best, an inexpert cabler, but my wonderful cousin Ann got me up to speed, at least enough for me to pull off this very simple version.  I've used two of the 16 skeins I have dyed, and am one full repeat through the cable pattern, which is 14 rows.  I may have to go back to knitting at breakfast with the guys to get this one ready in time for cool weather.  Although they will undoubtedly tease me unmercifully — the contrarian joy of being the professional woman in the business suit who, OMG k.n.i.t.s !!! — I am really eager to have this one ready to use.