Here’s the afghan and the pillow case for it. I am so excited that this wonderful yarn has become a useable afghan. I actually finished knitting it in four weeks but with the holidays it sat for two more weeks waiting for me to weave in the ends and finish the pillowcase. The pilllowcase is the origin afghan that I started seven years ago. When I picked up the project in October, I realized that I didn’t know where I had left off and the cables were too complicated for my knitting time right now. I left it sit when I found this pattern. This cable pattern went very quickly. The book says it can be finished in a weekend but it took me four weeks. Of course, I do have to go to work during the day so my knitting time is limited to a few hours a day.

To change the original afghan into a pillow case, I just knitted two rows and added a yarn over to create a button hole in the center of each cable repeat, then I knit another row and bound off the edge. I folded the afghan in half and crochected the side and bottom edge together. The buttons are on both sides. I just tied two buttons together with a piece of yarn and slipped them through the buttonholes on each side. (Hope that makes sense) The buttons also came from my collection so my only new expense for this project was the pattern book. The Encore Afghan book is one I’m sure I’ll use again.

Now for the barbie photo at the top of the post. This is the dress that I designed in 2000 and submitted to the contest. It’s called the “Easiest Ever Star Dress”. I’ll be adding the pattern to my website shortly. The yarn for this afghan was my prize so I’m naming this afghan “Recognition”.

Next on my list is updating my website and going through more of my yarn and WIP to see what I’d like to complete next. I did do some new knitting through the holidays. I bought and knit a scarf in a record two days and I relaxed with a few holiday striped dishcloths in the evenings right before Christmas when all the shopping was done and the gifts were wrapped.