Stars in the Mist....

Another finished project. I'm on a roll!

This pattern is called "Stars in the Mist," and I fell in love with it when I first saw the picture in a book of afghan patterns.

It's so unlike what I would normally choose to crochet, for a number of reasons:

• It's all one color, sort of an off-white. I usually gravitate toward bright colors. Lots of them. See my NEXT afghan for proof.
• It involves crocheting a lot of smaller pieces and sewing them together. I like a pattern that is finished as I go.
• It has 53 hexagons. I don't do prime numbers.
• It has 53 hexagons. I don't do hexagons. I do circles and squares.

• It has an irregular shape. I like things to fold neatly into thirds or fourths and to be perfectly symmetrical.
• It has curlicues. When you are crocheting curlicues, it looks a lot like someone has vomited yarn. Crocheting them together is like trying to hem up a bunch of snakes in a washtub. *Simile provided by Hubby.*
  
• It has a border that calls for crocheting picots. Picots are OF. THE. DEVIL. To be fair, I discovered that crocheting picots with yarn that is about the same circumference as a pencil is a lot easier than crocheting picots with thread that is difficult to see under an electron microscope. Whatever that is.

• This pattern called for "chunky" yarn. I identified with it immediately, but the pattern didn't mention that a skein would only make about 2 1/2 hexagons. And that's not including the border or the yarn used to sew all the hexagons together. This particular brand of chunky yarn retails for $6.19 a skein. You do the math. I might have been better off crocheting it out of dollar bills.
  

The first time I attempted this pattern, I was on an airplane headed to somewhere tropical. I don't know what possessed me to try the first hexagon on the plane. I couldn't wrap my head around the directions, and besides, an airplane is not exactly a comfortable place to attempt to crochet. I put it away for a long time. Long enough that when I started back and had already crocheted 9 hexagons, I discovered that the yarn I started with had been discontinued. Does anyone have a need for 9 off-white hexagons? I bought new yarn and started over. Then I bought more yarn. Then I bought more yarn.

When I started making the afghan FOR REAL, I had the idea in mind to auction it off at the next Nash Bash, our family reunion at the end of June. The closer I got to finishing it, however, the more I was attached to it. Sometimes literally. It is VERY heavy, and it will keep someone VERY warm.

But I think I will auction it off after all. With the animals in our house, it's not very practical to keep it around. I can just picture me coming home from a long day at school next winter and finding Hubby with this afghan across his lap, the dog on top, cats tangled in a hexagon or two, and pizza sauce all over it. I'd have a tough time explaining that to a judge and jury.

It's safer just to auction it off at the Nash Bash.