Knitting

Traveling Knit Afghan – Square Eight by Hanks and Needles

April 20, 2020
Traveling Knit Afghan - Square Eight designed by Hanks and Needles and made by Fluffy Stitches

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Traveling Knit Afghan – Square Eight by Hanks and Needles

Square Eight of the Traveling Knit Afghan, designed by Makenzie Alvarez is out!!

After its last stop in BC, Canada with Christie Boden Designs – which you can read about here – the Traveling Knit Afghan has crossed the border and is back in American soil! If you want to know where it started, read this post here!

Inspiration

The eighth square of the knit afghan is designed by Makenzie Alvarez of Hanks and Needles.

I didn’t know Makenzie before this project, but she has earned her spot on my top designer’s list! Just a couple of minutes on her Instagram account and I was already drooling over her work. She calls herself a cable obsessed knitter and her work definitely accounts for that! She has the most amazing cable patterns and the texture on her projects is just superb!

The Celtic Knit Baby Blanket by Hanks and Needles
Photo from Hanks and Needles

Another interesting thing about Makenzie is that aside from Instagram, she also seems very active on Ravelry. There she hosts KALs and also manages her test knits. It may be my engineer, old-school techie side, but her use of these old forums really put a smile on my face! 🙂 I think it’s such a great way to create a community and a tightly knit group (pun intended)!

So head over to her Instagram, or Ravelry and say hi to Makenzie, the girl who fell in love with knitting when she taught herself to knit cables!

The eighth square of the Traveling Knit Afghan by Hanks and Needles
Photo from Hanks and Needles

Project

Keeping up with my initial choice, I’ve used the Norway 10 ply yarn from Morris & Sons in Beige as well as my 4.00 mm knitting needles. As recommended, I also block my squares using blocking mats at the end of each project.

The eight squares of the Traveling Knit Afghan so far

Pattern

All the materials and other information needed for the pattern are listed in Hanks and Needles’ blog post.

Traveling Knit Afghan – Square Eight by Hanks and Needles

Here is the pattern for Square Eight of the Traveling Knit Afghan.

Detail of the pattern from square eight

If you’re worried about cables, don’t be!! In this square, we will be making a chevron pattern. If you’ve never done it before (case in point) you can relax. 🙂 The pattern is easy and it works up beautifully. Just knit and purl away! However, just as the square before, don’t get distracted or you might purl where you should do a knit, or knit when you should purl and that will throw off the wonderful chevron pattern that Makenzie designed for us!

The pattern for the square has written instructions and it is also charted with a note on how to read charts, in case you want to try it out! I’ll admit I just followed the written instructions. 😛

Once again, when you’re finished don’t forget to block your square to give it that million-dollar look! Check this post here to know more about blocking!

Square Eight of the Traveling Knit Afghan being blocked on top of one Red Suricata Blocking Mat

Final thoughts on Square Eight

One of the reasons I decided to do the knit afghan was to know more designers and learn more techniques.

I admit that after reading that Makenzie was obsessed with cables, I secretly hoped for a cabled square. I’ve never done cables in my life and I thought this would be my entry point. Alas, this square did not have cables, but I enjoyed making it just as much. Because more than the techniques, what I’m loving best about this project is discovering such amazing designers that are also wonderful people!

I’m really happy to meet you all! 🙂

See you in the next square!

Square Eight of the Traveling Knit Afghan is designed by Makenzie Alvarez, the girl who fell in love with knitting through cables! Read all about it here! #travelingknitafghan #travelingafghansproject

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