An “African” for my RV

My great-grandmother crocheted a lot of afghans, or rather Africans, as we sometimes called them.  Everyone had one in their car and my mom used to tease that she had to “sit in the back seat with the African”.  I’m really not sure how we started calling them “Africans” but it does sounds funny! Whenever someone got a new car my great grandma would start a afghan for the car that matched the color of the car.  

Around Christmas I finished a blanket I was working on and didn’t have a new project in mind so I started messing around with some nice cotton/acrylic yarn I’d bought.  I found a square that looked easy in one of my books and soon a plan for a new afghan was born!  It had a lot of earth tones, which aren’t my usual color palette, but I liked it.   I wasn’t sure where it was going to go but I was excited about my plan and found the yarns I needed online cheaper than at AC Moore or Michaels so I bought what I hope is enough and got started.   It soon occurred to me that my afghan would be great in my RV!  At the time I realized that I hadn’t found “my” RV yet so I was getting ready!  Now it’s great because I have all the yarn I need (hopefully) and it’s the perfect free activity to keep me busy until April!

 

My plan is to make 9 big squares – each square is going to be 4 small squares with a border – after I join all 9 big squares I’ll put a border around that.  Each square is going to be both a “color” and a “neutral”.   I’m going to make 2 of each color combo – one with the “color” in the center and the “neutral” on the border and then the reverse.  The middle square is going to be purple in the center and almond on the edge.  I’d planned to use the almond for the border of the whole afghan, however I realized that the couch in my RV is Almond color (at least it looks that way in the picture) so since I have 2 skeins of a brown that is too similar to another brown to use in the body and 2 skeins of pink that I couldn’t work in I’m going to expand the border to include those 2 colors as well.    I can’t decide it it’s going to truly look good when I’m done or not…I LOVE the yarn so I really hope it does!  It will keep me warm on chilly nights in the RV regardless of if it looks good or not!