Avoidance

I'm working on a wavy afghan made up of random stripes of fancy yarns I bought with no real plan in mind. I have a bad case of the "ooo, pretty" and two yarn stores within a 10-block radius of the house. This afghan is an effort to display the yarn in a more decorative fashion than the current "skeins in cubbyholes and Rubbermaid totes and plastic bags" scheme.

It's also the project I work on instead of the one I'm supposed to be working on. I'm supposed to be working on my sister's afghan, which I gave her for Christmas. What I actually gave her for Christmas was a box full of loose squares, skeins of yarn, and a picture of the pattern. And then I took the box back, promising to bring it to her when we visit in June.

This afghan has become my nemesis. The "squares" are actually hexagons. The pattern was more difficult than it looked, including a woven border around each square. But mostly, it's the colors.

You see, my sister has a thing for the decorating themes of the late sixties and early seventies. She also has a thing for the music of Cat Stevens and macramed hempen jewelry, just to elaborate. Not that there is anything wrong with this. Except when my KnitPicks order arrived, with all the colors she had requested. When it was all dumped out of the box, it looked like 1973 had eaten one too many "special" carob brownies and heaved all over my table. Tommy Chong would reject this afghan as being too seventies, man. It is like a visual representation of patchouli stank.

So I'm avoiding it. But I can't much longer. I can't bring myself to give her the same box of squares as a baby shower gift. Looks like I'd better quit avoiding, and embrace my inner earth child. Man.