Since I made a sampler afghan for my mother on her 60th birthday, I will do the same as well for MIL, whose 60th is in Sept., 2011. I think I will start with the lace patterns used in the beautiful “Advent Scarf” and go from there. The pattern has the math done already to make the different patterns line up, which will eliminate some of the trouble I had with my “Lacy Leaves”.

The yarn needs to be washable, in a house with dogs.

Also thought about using “Renee’s Lace Class Scarf”, here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/renees-lace-class...

-It turns out that at this gauge, I’m not going to need to join multiple strips together. The 87 stitches in this bulky a yarn is a lap-afghan size, all its own. I think to make it a little wider, I will just add edging panels on each side. I figure it’ll only be about 10-12 “days” of the advent calendar long, too.

I might have to make a few lap afghans, just to be able to try out all the stitches.

-Wooo! I have done nupps! Nupp, nupp, nuppity nupp. It turns out it takes about a skein of yarn per day, of this chunky stuff. That leaves me only eight “days” of patterns, plus two edges to attach along the sides. I’ve picked borders from Nicky Epstein’s “Knitting Over the Edge” book, for those.

It does take me more than a day to knit these, though: the motion is so big and exaggerated that my hands tire quickly and I have to switch to a small-needle project.

-It’s not just the motion, it’s the yarn. I forgot how inflexible acrylic is, compared to wool. I can only do a couple of rows on this at a time before my hands wear out. I keep it by the couch and do two or three rows whenever I watch t.v., starting with this before switching to my more comfortable knitting projects.

-8 days turns out to be too many. The days of the pattern that I am knitting are only: 1, 2, 3, 13, 16, 24.

-This was really done months ago, but I kept thinking I would add another border along the sides, and playing with various patterns for border stitches, and ripping them out, and then I gave up and decided that simple was the best option, and it was just fine, as it was.