I've wanted to make another Pawprints Over the Rainbow Bridge Afghan almost as soon as I finished the first one. The first one was made as a gift. Soon afterwards though, I found myself collecting more yarn for a second afghan.
I'm in love with these colors!
Lionbrand Cupcake yarn in Jellybean.
With my second afghan I decided to crochet it in one piece rather than making panels. This method involved more joins as I cut the yarn at every color change. My OCD also compelled me to make all the color changes at the end of a row. I started out with six cakes of yarn, working from the outside in on the first three cakes and then from the inside out on the latter three. I ended up having to purchase a seventh cake to have enough yarn to have the color changes at the end of the rows. I only used a bit of every color from the seventh cake so I will be using it again for any future afghans.
The original pattern can he found HERE and is by Amy Brewer and Doug Speeckaert.
Each "pawprint" is a pattern repeat of 20 stitches. I used 12 pattern repeats so I started with a beginning chain of 242 and used a 4.25 mm crochet hook. (The beginning chain uses a formula of 20 + 2.)
I finished the afghan by crocheting two rows of a single crochet border using Caron Simply Soft yarn in "Chocolate." The finished size is 61" wide x 59" long, so very similar in size to the first afghan.
To me, an afghan needs to be something big enough you can really curl up in!
4 rows brown
10 rows dark orange
9 rows orange
2 rows "dirty" orange
8 rows lime
3 rows light green
9 rows green
3 rows blue/gray
9 rows purple
7 rows blue
8 rows purple
3 rows blue/gray
10 rows green
3 rows light green
9 rows lime
3 rows "dirty" orange
9 rows orange
9 rows dark orange
4 rows brown
The colors are purely what I decided to call them; not official by any means! As you can tell, the blanket is not exactly a mirror image but it's what worked best to utilize the yarn cakes.
This afghan was such a joy to make. I was also elated to find it a home even before it was finished as it is always so much more meaningful to custom craft an item that is wanted and appreciated!
