Noro Silk Garden Afghan

contributed by Shawn

I am not one of those knitters who works on only one project at a time, so over the summer one of my projects was to pick out my favorite colors of Noro Silk Garden and create individual afghan squares. 

This was my go-to project whenever it was too warm to have a large project sitting in my lap. Kay Gardiner very handily provided a lovely way to make these quilt-like squares that I admired in her Mitered Crosses Blanket--for Japan. I used this mitered square technique and made a couple of these over the course of several months.  

Theses squares are addictive... well, so is the Noro Silk Garden! I ended up modifying the original pattern to include more squares because I had so much fun making them.  Here are a couple of my favorite ones:

Once the weather started to cool off it was time to think about putting the squares together. I put it off for a while because I couldn't decide in what order I wanted to assemble them. Finally, I just began putting the pieces together. I really enjoyed this since you pick-up stitches along the edges of the squares and join them with the 3-needle bind off technique.  No seaming! The edges are finished with applied I-cord. 

The blanket went back into hiding for a while because I had some other things to finish on deadlines.  Warning - there are a million ends to weave into this project/blanket because of the color changes. But I decided I love the colors and yarn so much that I didn't care. This blanket is all for me and I absolutely love it so I'm still working on the weaving-in.  I definitely don't mind it now that I can use the blanket to cozy up in the chilly weather that has arrived. 

Of course as soon as I got this out there were two other takers:

Indigo

and Raku

"Oh, thanks mom a new blankie!"

They enjoy the blanket, but also the gas stove. I've been working on it in front of the gas stove on chilly nights and this is also Indigo and Raku's favorite place to 'toast' too!