Knit Afghan ~ For the Manly Man

My 22 year old son recently moved to his own appartment. He's a lucky guy and found a great little one bedroom, kitchen, bath and living room flat in a nice neighborhood that is less than a mile from where he works.

After a weekend of moving his bed, dresser and 'stuff' (he has alot of 'stuff') he was quite at home - home without furniture, chairs, kitchen necessities, or groceries. But he was persistant and and wanted to do this on his own, so my husband and I drove away (after doing a bit of grocery shopping to stock the fridge) and let him at it.

The next weekend, he asked us to come visit to see how he had furnished the appartment. He found a great second hand sofa and chair at a great price in sage green and got a couple of his buddies to help him move them in (I'm sure he paid them with a few beers!). Then he bought a roomsize rug to cover the hardwood floors, again in sage green. But his most impressive furnishing is the 62 inch flat screen TV that takes up one complete wall. And that was it... A couch, a chair and a TV. Furnishing is completed! After all, what else does one need? And all in sage green with white wallls... (except for the black tv).

He did a great job... but it definately needs color. So, I rumaged through my yarn stash and found some browns, blacks, greens and white in acrylic (it must be washable!) and started knitting up an afghan for his couch. I set out to make something that would be manly, yet colorful and I think I suceeded.

This project took 2 full weeks of knitting every evening and some marathon knitting on the weekends but was extremely easy. It measures 42 x 56 inches and has a total of 48,544 knits and purls. The basic stitch is a repeat of 8 simple rows and changing up the colors is what makes the pattern pop. It can be made in any size just by adding or subtracting stiches - but always keep an even amount. I bordered it with seed stich around all 4 sides to give it a nice edging.
I think this stitch would make great scarves, baby blankets and if your dedicated enough, even a bed blanket.



Here is the main stitch pattern:
Row 1 : K2, P2 * repeat across row
Row 2 : P2, K2 * repeat across row
Row 3 : Knit
Row 4 : Purl
Row 5 : K2, P2 * repeat across row
Row 6 : P2, K2 * repeat across row
Row 7 : Purl
Row 8 : Knit

Repeat these 8 rows through out entire project

I used size 10 circular needles, but I wanted it loosely knit with 4 ply worsted weight acrylic yarn. Size 8 needles would work for a tighter stitch, but would make it a bit smaller.

I cast on 164 stitches and did 6 rows of seed stitch (K1, P1)
I followed the pattern above with 5 seed stitches at the beginning and end of each row, changing colors as I went along to reach the desired length and then ended it with another 6 rows of seed stitch.

I did a matching pillow in solid brown working in the round. This was made in a tube shape and because it wasn't worked in rows, the pattern goes a bit differently:
Row 1 : K2, P2 * repeat across row
Row 2 : K2, P2 * repeat across row
Row 3 : Knit
Row 4 : Knit
Row 5 : K2, P2 * repeat across row
Row 6 : K2, P2 * repeat across row
Row 7 : Purl
Row 8 : Purl

If you try this easy pattern, I would love to hear from you how it went for you.

He's coming home for Easter dinner on Sunday and I am giving it to him then. I hope he likes it!