Gift Afghan

June wasn't as productive knitting-wise as I had hoped partially because I had some busy weeks on call, and partially because of this: This was a group afghan that a bunch of Toronto knitters made for Jacquie, who is moving back to San Francisco. Amy and I hatched the plan during the SeaSocks cruise, and I took on the job of being the organizer. Which meant that I was responsible for making sure that it got sewn up. My grand scheme was to learn how to crochet some time between May and June, so that I could easily crochet it together. The learning how to crochet part still hasn't happened. At one point, the squares were pretty slow in coming in, so mid-late June was taken up in knitting extra squares. I think I knit around 8 all together. I had some help from Katherine (I'm not sure if she has a blog) one Sunday afternoon and we got a few strips of 3-4 squares sewn up. Then, I was on call for the ICU up until 8 AM of the day of the party where we were planning to give Jacquie the afghan, and I had several very late nights. So that Friday, I sat down and sewed squares: The Gambler was watching TV providing encouragement, as well as documenting the process. Altogether, I sewed through 2 Wimbledon matches (men's semi finals, I believe), 2 episodes of CSI and an episode of CSI Miami (which cannot hold a candle to the original CSI, but desperate times call for desperate measures). Even after that, there was one square I couldn't fit in because it was a bit wide, and I had heard that there was a square at The Purple Purl (the Toronto knitting cafe where we held Jacquie's party). But since Jacquie had been in charge of a baby afghan a few months ago, I knew that she would understand if the afghan wasn't 100% done for the party. I actually had The Gambler drive me to The Purl in order to have some time to weave in ends. I was relieved to see that Jacquie really liked the afghan. It turned out that there were a few extra squares turned in at the last minute, so I had enough to add an extra row. Which meant more sewing up. Greedo was responsible for making sure that the cat hair was evenly distributed. See that red square with the embroidered heart that is in the foreground? That has the honor of being the only square that got sewn in backwards. I was very close to knitting the square that had the Braille letters for KNIT "written" in bobbles upside down, but caught my error before it was too late. Surprisingly, the experience hasn't totally turned me off Mission Falls Cotton; I've actually got plans to knit an afghan for our house. I'll use the Ball Band washcloth pattern, but a) the squares will be bigger, and b) I'll knit each square directly on top of the one below in order to minimize the seaming up. One of these days.