Square one

The Julie Levy square was the first Great American Afghan square featured at the January River Wools blocks-of-the-month meeting (the one I missed due to flu). I actually knit it twice, since my yarn order for the afghan hadn't come in yet. This is the second version, out of Cascade 220 Superwash. My first version came out rather oversized, so I went down a needle size for the second version.

I'm adjusting the number of stitches in the bottom and top garter borders for several of the squares. The directions for this square called for casting on 48 stitches; however, other squares (with the same suggested needle size) called for casting on as many as 60 stitches! Since my garter stitch gauge is about 18 sts/4", I cast on 54 stitches instead. That meant I only needed to increase 22 stitches in the last row of the bottom border. Likewise, I decreased 22 stitches in the first row of the top border.

Fidgety business (for the truly obsessive only): I ended the center section two rows early (on row 13 of Chart A). However, as I knit the first row of the top border (a RS row), I worked the cable crossings from the next row of the Charts, except all in knit stitches. Why? Two reasons: First, the square was getting a little bit tall, and this let me shave 2 rows off. Second, I think this matched the transition out of the bottom border better. As a bonus, since this was the decrease row, I hid some of the decreases in the cable crossings.