My senior year at St Olaf College, I got the brilliant idea in my head that my girlfriends and I should knit an afghan together for our dear friend, Diana Frantz who was to get married right after graduation. After a little coaxing and assurance that I would help them knit, I talked to wonderful girls in our "pod" to secretly knit squares for an afghan. The squares tickled into my dorm room during our senior year until one day, Diana announced that her June wedding would be postponed indefinitely. Well, of course we were sad for her, but we decided to knit on anyway and by graduation I had most of the pieces and put them in storage at my parents' home to be pulled out when the time was right.
The blocks sat there for over a year until one day I got a call from Diana letting me know that they had set a new date for the wedding and that she would be getting married in three months! Although I was quite excited, a moment of panic hit me as I remembered those squares and the promise I had made to my girlfriends to assemble the blanket and deliver it at the wedding.
I quickly called my mom and had her send me the box full of finished (and some unfinished) squares and all the extra yarn. As I began to take the squares out of the box, I quickly realized this was going to be a bigger project than I had imagined. Being a group of knitters of different abilities... none of the squares were the same size. Apparently we had all missed the chapter on gauge. So I arranged the "squares" as best I could and added boarders and blocked and stretched and finally decided sashing would be the best way to hide the imperfections. And then of course I couldn't stop with just one border... no let's make it three! Luckily this was during a period of my life when I needed a lot of time to sit on the couch and watch Law & Order and think about nothing but the feel of the yarn through my fingers and the rhythm of the stitches passing from one needle to the next.
It may not be perfect, but it was made with lots of love and good intentions.
And here are the beautiful ladies that knit it at our graduation, May 2005:
Front: Michelle Wiersma, Linsdey Reed, Carrie Wiersma, Amy Miller, Carrie Vermazen, Diana Frantz (the bride to be)
Back: Laurna Strikwerda, Lauren Christiansen, Bridget McGuire, Sonja Paulson
1 comment:
I think it turned out wonderfully considering so many different people worked on it! Great job putting it together, it looks great! Did you make it in time to give it to them for their wedding?
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