Read the fine print

I started joining the strips on Counting Pane, so I finally have some pictures that are at least a little interesting to post. You might guess, just from the pictures, that I've finished knitting strips, since to me, that's the logical sequence in making this afghan. But no, I am on the 8th strip right now. But graduation is less than a month away, and I'm beginning to doubt my ability to finish this afghan in time. So I decided I might like to have something besides a bag of strips to show for my labor. So I started sewing.

I have been worried that the squares won't be as well defined as in the original, which used black, rather than gray, for the outlines. I still think I'd have liked black in this role in my afghan, but I can see that the squares will be visible.

The instructions call for picking up and casting off along the side edges, and then sewing the strips together. I am using a fussier method. I picked up stitches on each side, and knit across one of the strips. Then I grafted the two together using "garter stitch kitchener", as I learned while making the garter stitch gloves. The hardest part of this was figuring out how to do the set up rows. Did I want two sets of purl bumps before I started grafting? Purl bumps and a knit row? Somehow, it seems the grafting creates the equivalent of two rows of knitting (a right side and a "wrong" side). So, to make the up and down gray bits the same as the cross-wise ones, I had to experiment a little (well, a lot). I think I've got it now. It's a little uneven, but I think will smooth out with blocking (she says blithely).

Garter stitch kitchener? After setting up the first stitches by pulling the thread through purl-wise, on front needle, slip off first stitch knit-wise, and pull thread through second stitch purl-wise. On back needle, slip knit-wise, pull purl-wise. This makes a knit row first, then a purl row. To make the purl bumps first, reverse all knit and purl instructions.