County Fair Progress

Friday I completed the spider web doily, and blocked it. It it beautiful!

Then with advice from daughter #2, selected an afghan pattern. It is from the Needlecraft Shop Afghan Collector's Series. I've got a full 3 ring binder full of these patterns, and have enjoyed sorting through them. I've made a list of the patterns that I think I can convert to Tunisian, and a list of the ones I want to make in classic crochet. This will be the first that I've actually made directly from the pattern. It involves front post and back post doubles, front post and back post trebles, and creates cables, braids and basketweaves.
Then we started discussing colors, she said the pattern is masculine and not to use a pink, lilac, etc, and wanted navy blue. I thought the stitches would show better with a lighter color and suggested white, off-white or aran. I started swatching colors - royal, gold, yellow and white, and indeed, the lighter colors showed the stitches best. So I selected an armload of blues from the "stash" and we agreed to a periwinkle. Then started swatching to practice the stitches, check gauge, etc. The pattern is very complicated; row 2 has you use row 1 or all the stitch patterns, row 3 uses row 2 of the patterns, then it gets more fun! Some of the patterns repeat in 2 rows, one in 3 rows, one in 6 rows. So you might be on row 5 and be doing row 1 of 1 pattern, row 5 of the next, row 2 of the next;...
I finally took my pattern and my swatch to the computer and started a spreadsheet. I was reading the pattern, counting stitches, typing, re-reading, re-counting, frogging and stitching. Sounds like frustration? I was happy in my problem-solving!
I swatched the full width of the afghan for 5 rows, so that I'll be confident when I actually start. May go out for yarn today, it's on sale at AC Moore.

While trying to decide on a color, I pulled out the Red Heart color card that I bought from Herrschners. "Herrschners website" I discovered that I had a tool that people on Crochet Partners have been asking about! It has a list of the variegated yarns, and matching solid colors!