My current project is an embroidered, crocheted afghan from McCall’s Do-It-Yourself-Guide Gloria Vanderbilt Designs for your Home magazine, Holiday 1975 edition.
I had always wanted to make this afghan. The unique zigzagged edge fascinated me, so I held onto this magazine for years. In the aftermath of 9/11, I had heard horrendous stories of the growing prejudice against Muslim and Afghanistan people. This bothered me. This feeling grew as I saw French fries being called Freedom Fries and the small French bread loaves that once were sold at my local grocery store as ‘French Twins’ suddenly disappeared. It made me wonder if those knitted or crocheted blankets called afghans would disappear as well.
I was determined to wage a silent protest against what I viewed as the growing discrimination of the Afghan people by starting work on the afghan that I had long planned to make. The post 9/11-world was the right time to begin such a project.
I had recently learned that my favorite local needlework store was going out of business. Its location in the Alley Shops in the Crystal City Underground in Arlington, VA, which is close to the Pentagon didn’t help it weather the growing fear of Washingtonians of another similar attack occurring so the little shop was doomed.
I purchased most of the yarn at Nimble Needles in 2002 and the necessary Afghan hook that same year from Mary Maxim. The rest of the yarn needed was bought at Michaels.
In February 2002, I began crocheting each of the strips. The afghan is made up of 16 strips that are done in Tunisian crochet. Each of the squares is 19 ribs high and 20 vertical bars wide.
As you can see from the above picture, the magazine only shows part of the placement of the 13 flowered motifs. Thankfully, there is a diagram showing the arrangement of colored squares. As I worked, I began to think about how to create the same placement of the motifs to match the picture. I made my own diagram on the computer and realized that I could use what motifs were visible in the picture as a guide and then place the rest in a random pattern. In the end, I believe that I was successful.
During 2009, I finished crocheting all of the strips. Next in the afghan’s directions was to edge each of the strips with black yarn.
I have a confession to make here and it’s somewhat off-topic, I really don’t know much about crocheting. My maternal grandma taught me the very rudimentary basics of it during a summer visit. All I really know are making a chain and single crochet. My grandma crocheted afghans for each of her grandchildren. I was very interested in learning the craft, but grandma wasn’t interested in teaching me more than what she did. I never understood why, but it's possible that she didn’t have the patience. During most of her visits, she was always crocheting something, usually an afghan made up of granny squares. I can remember sitting and trying to see what exactly she was doing with the yarn so that I could somehow learn how she made them. I asked her once and all she said was, “I just do the stitch I do”.
I eventually got a magazine and did crochet one granny square. Later, I learned about such things as double and half double crochet, but honestly know nothing about crocheting afghans. Also, I haven’t been able to internalize the process like with crocheting chains and single crochet. So when it came to edging the strips, there was a lot of ripping out the edging and starting again. The afghans that grandma made had edges that were flat against the edges of the afghan. Finally, somehow I was able to get the edging the way I felt it should look. It seemed that when I first began, the edging I was doing was coming out so that it stood up perpendicular to the strip’s edge.
Once the edging was completed, I could begin embroidering each of the 16 strips. I realized as began that I would have to come up with color combinations for each motif as well. This color combination according to the picture in the magazine changed with each use. I saw that I would have to plan out the color combinations of every motif for each row as I worked.
Currently I've finished embroidering the 8th row, so I’m halfway through with the embroidery. My goal is to have the afghan finished by the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I’m not sure if I’ll reach it, but I’m eager to at least try. Because it's always better to try something and fail than to have never begun at all.
