Pigs Are Flying.

...I'm crocheting. an afghan. with 13 colors. because* stash.

I bought in big to both of Rowan's Pure Wool Worsted Mystery Afghans last summer/fall. "Big" as in I bought the yarn (18 skeins, 17 colors, nearly 4,000 yards) for the first one, and then swapped out a few colors so I had yarn to knit the second one. Yeah, yikes! I think it was 27 or so balls, in 25 colors. Unfortunately, as much as I love both of the finished projects, I realized too late that I don't have the patience to knit - or sew up - either one. That's close to 6,000 yards of worsted weight yarn sitting in my stash. It's been nagging me for months.

So last Wednesday when I stumbled across 70 Sunday, I thought I'd found the answer. But 36 hours later and a few wonky test squares (with even some great advice in Ravelry's Granny Squares forum) later...I was still looking.

Gotta love Ravelry! I searched crochet, afghan, more than six colors...and stumbled across the Vintage Crocheted Afghan. We've had a black and white sample in the shop for ages and I've always admired it. My friend Melody crocheted one for her mother last fall and it landed in my favorites.

Saturday morning I dove in. The pattern calls for seven colors; I'm using 13. (in short, I'm using two colors for every alternate color that the pattern calls for...I'll report back on how successful that is!) I laid out the colors for the first repeat and liked it.

Then spent way more time than I wanted being sure I could remember which color was which and which order they appeared. (note that all this work hasn't been that useful - I mixed up the 5th and 6th colors...but I can't imagine it matters!)

By Saturday afternoon I had this.

Tonight I have this. (and almost ALL of the in-between time was spent doing lots of other things).

Not that I think an afghan is going to happen in a week (or even a month) - I still have about 80 rows (and a LOT of ends) to go. but this is a good start. and hey, flying pigs are always good for a smile!

...and P.S. because I've forgotton to post about this for weeks (oops!) my leftover Ulura is in the mail to Bonny. I only hope this little bit of winter yarn isn't the reason winter is holding on tight to y'all up North!

Bonny, I hope you like it - and I hope it's too warm to wear your Polar Opposites when you finish it!

*huge thank you to Kym for sharing this most-necessary grammar news update last week!