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For the last six months I have been working on a massive knitting project. See, my little brother is getting married on Saturday and he and his future wife (!) are big on personalized gifts. Plus, I'm me. I didn't want to shop off no stinking registry. Instead I made them a highly personalized wool afghan that should last as long as their marriage (and I'm betting on that whole "till death do us part thing" so I mean forever). Not only did I want to give them something that would remember as really super special, I wanted to make something that was really super special to me. I started with the idea of a blanket my Grammy Jane made for my parents (and my aunt and uncle, and her sister, and her best friends) many years ago. I have loved this blanket since childhood, and I know my brother has too. I didn't want to make something identical, but definitely something inspired by Grammy's beautiful afghans. I started by using a different color and weight of yarn. Grammy's are cream colored, and I think made out of a worsted weight wool. Mine is a rusty orange--the newlyweds are big fans of all things orange--and a bulky weight yarn. Not only did this knit up superfast (larger needles=less stitches) but it gave the afghan a more rustic and earthy feel, which is totally right for it's intended recipients.
The blanket is constructed in seven panels, each of which has an equal number of rows, and a two-stich garter boarder. 
The boarders make for matching up the panels for seaming a fairly easy task, which is a good thing. There is nothing I despise more than finish work on a knitting project that is knitted but essentially not done. [Aside: my first ever knitting project, a sampler afghan, has never been pieced together and just takes up space in a storage box.] Four of the panels are identical--the garter boarder and a horsehoe cable running up the center on a reverse stockinette background.
The other three panels are similar, but not identical (though I made a mistake on one of them--don't tell Jon & Alicia!). They all have the garter boarder and an additional border of bobbles spaced every six rows running up each side. The middle section of each panel are seed stitch diamonds atop a stockinette backdrop. Two of them have offset half diamonds, creating a stockinette zig-zag up the center. These two panels should be mirror images with the offset pieces reversed on the two panels so the zig-zag points toward the center (the panels are placed one on each side). I made them identical, but I don't think anyone will mind. The center panel has a full seed-stich diamond running up the center and half-diamonds on either side, with zig-zags running in-between. Basically, it is the other two similar panels squeezed together without the borders (duh).
I started work on this on Christmas day (as soon as the holiday knitting was completed), and finished the knitting portion of the process in late March or early April. 
Next up was to block all of the pieces to size and get them stitched together. At the time, I was living in a TINY apartment and had no space for blocking. I had also been asked by my landlord to leave because she wanted to sell my house. Amidst trying to find a place to live and packing up my life, I did the blocking at my parents house. For about a month I took up some rarely used floor space in their guest room. With the aid of a giant t-square I masking-taped out a 6' x 6" rectangle on the narrow strip of floor between the bed and the wall. One at a time I wetted and pinned out the four identical strips. Each of them rested for a week on the floor, in part because the process took about an hour I was able to eek out only on weekends, and in part because that's how long they took to completely dry. I moved into my new (much larger) apartment at the beginning of May, and as soon as I found the floor in my office/sewing/craft/guest room, I taped out three more boxes, two 6' x 1' and one 6' x about 21" and got the last three pieces pinned down. Even with a fan blowing on them (gently, my friends, gently) they took a little over a week to completely dry. Finally I had all the sections ready to piece together! On May 21st. The afghan's ride to California (the newlyweds live in San Francisco) was leaving early on the morning of May 28th.
I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but seaming always takes much longer than you expect it to. I spent every extra moment I could find (and many I wish I had spent sleeping) of last week seaming what I took to calling "the damn blanket" together. Now that I have had a nap, I'm happy with it again. Last week? I wanted it to die. 
Saturday morning I wove in the last yarn-end and wrote some care instructions on the back of one of the skein's label. Last night it was delivered to Jon & Alicia's home. Hopefully my Pop got a picture of their faces when they opened up the wrapping. It makes me really happy to know that our family's tradition of beautiful handknits will carry on to a new generation of young marrieds, and I'm also happy to know that Jonathan and Alicia will have a little piece of me to keep them warm.
(Click here for more photos on my flickr.)
sniff...that last paragraph made me tear up just a bit. but i am also something of a crier. even though one panel has a bit of a "flaw", something handmade and so personal is a million times better and more memorable (hello, wedding!) than a store-bought item.
You are like the bestest sister evar. I'm so happy you're done with it, though... less stress and more funtime!!!
I don't understand all the "knitting talk" but the pictures are gorgeous! I'm sure Jon and Alicia were thrilled. I would be.
