I started this giant granny afghan on January 1st, 2010, in the car on the way to go visiting. I was crocheting-along with the Giant Granny CAL over on Ravelry and had fun watching everyone’s progress. When the rounds got long, I got bored and then the giant granny sat in the corner of my bedroom collecting dust. For a long time.

And then I started a ripple afghan, but the giant granny in the corner was hissing at me to finish. I usually don’t let my hibernating projects hiss at me; I am really, really good at ignoring them.  But this time, I decided to pull it out from the corner, assess where I was (not much assessing needed on a giant granny square) and finish it up.

Although I gave myself some shoulder, neck and arm pain in the process, I was able to finish what I’ve called The Big Ass Granny. Done! Yay!

I used two yarns for this project that have been sitting in the stash for a long time, and it feels really good that they are now a useful blanket. The yarns were both “bulky” but shouldn’t have been used together. The Perendale Wool is a lofty, plied yarn, while the other yarn, a handspun, tweedy wool from Switzerland (I found it at a thrift store) called Lewolaine, is a dense, stiff singles.

In the following picture, you can see the difference. The thicker yarn (navy and dusty blue)  is the tweedy handspun and the solid color yarn (navy and sky blue) is the Perendale.

I ignored the gauge issue (apparently I’m good at ignoring lots of things) and luckily it didn’t make a huge difference in the finished afghan. I used an I hook (5.5 mm, I think). The Big Ass Granny came out awfully big, don’t you think?

Can you see my attempt at making this afghan a rectangle? On the right side is a sky blue stripe that is wide. I started working back and forth instead of going ’round and ’round. It was a quick, on-the-fly decision and I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing. After a while of that I decided to go back to working in the round. It was a silly thing to do, but the mantra here was “Git ‘er done.” It’s asymmetrical and I don’t mind.

When I used up most of the yarn, I stopped granny-ing to add an edging.

I think it was the perfect way to finish.

After a soak in the washing machine, I hung it out to dry last night on the clothesline, then promptly forgot about it when I left to go knitting. It got rained on a little, but Gerald rescued it for me. It finished drying overnight on the shower curtain rod in the bathroom. Now my big ass granny is draped on the back of my knitting chair where it will get lots of use!

Now, to get back to that ripply afghan…