I let myself be sucked into working this by a post in Knitting Paradise at: http://www.knittingparadise.com/t-55828-1.html

I used worsted weight acrylic from my stash, but I limited my colours to the same number as the pattern. I thought that, for once in my life, I’d be making something that more closely resembled the original!

I had vague plans for assembly by Priscilla Hewitt’s Flat Braid Joining Method in a tenth colour (black?) Well, as it turned out, that was an unnecessary step … this time.

Bug-full pattern, but I wouldn’t let that stop me!
My first ‘fix’: After just a couple of pattern repeats, I wasn’t happy with the edges. I re-read the directions for the Center Square. No mistake there, but the edges just looked WRONG. Colour B was not attached in any way to the last stitch on the row (when viewed from the front side).

A-browsing I went. I haven’t found the exact same stitch, but a close enough one called Brick stitch. The first half of it is the same pattern as on this Slip-Stitch Sampler’s Center Square, but … it is based on a multiple of 4 plus 3, whereas Lion Brand’s pattern is based on a multiple of 4 plus 1. Without those two edge stitches, the edge looks awful and would be one mess to pick up stitches along.
So, I re-did my Center Square with two more stitches cast on. Those two stitches are the selvedge, connect/use both colours at both edges, and make the edge look perfect!! It’s a nice, two-tone, chain!

On every row, I slipped the first stitch knitwise and purled the last stitch. (Of course, I worked the throw’s pattern between those two edge stitches.) When I came to the colour change, I purled the last stitch with the new colour.

Dear old LionBrand has issued yet another correction! They also finally added a plain flat photo of their completed afghan. For those who NEED to see before doing, it’s good, but I now can see exactly why there are employees whose job it is to drape things artistically and place lighting just so. No one who saw just the flat photo would ever be enticed into making it!

I dislike that Lion Brand outright lied about all the stitch patterns being slip-stitch patterns. Two are NOT. When I find two more that aren’t too much like the existing ones, I just may re-start this again, since the yarn planned for it is already segregated from the rest of my stash.

To force the edges of the square to lie flat and be relatively stretched out, I added the hefty Blackberry Edging from Esther Bozak’s Trinity Stitch Shawl http://www.cs.oswego.edu/~ebozak/knit/esb-patterns/shawl.... . I love this border! This is the third or fourth time I’ve used it since making the shawl a few years ago. It is hefty, at least in worsted weight yarn! Yes, it’s too full for the square and ripples like crazy, but I like it that way. (Or maybe I was just too lazy to figure out how to work it flat? I didn’t even try.)

Yes, it was a mistake to use a grey/black camouflage yarn for the border on two sides; I knew it before I began it. Because I didn’t have enough of it, there are two sides in cream. This arrangement makes for an optical illusion that the square is a rectangle. I assure you, it is a geometrically accurate square with equal length sides and four ninety-degree corners.

The almost equally invisible corners are in grey, but - in keeping with the sampler theme of the original throw - they are samplers of mitered squares:

• One is mitered by a raised double-decrease in the center: slip two knitwise, k1, pass the two slipped stitches over the k1.

• Another is just two consecutive k2tog in the center.

• The other two are k2tog/ssk and ssk/k2tog.

The last three have no significant difference in appearance.

All through my lonely square, I worked a chain selvedge and picked up stitches through the back loop of it only. When working the border, I worked the last k1 into a k2tog with the second stitch being one from the edge.

Where casting on, I used the crochet-hook cast-on.

There were a total of 40 ends to weave in on the square and its logs and another dozen for the border and corners. I am proud to declare that I did weave them all in all by myself!

While I do have the necessary yarn set aside for making the whole throw, I doubt I’ll ever do it. There’re have been at least three corrections made to the pattern since it was first placed on the Lion Brand website! It was a headache to work. So, I have added a vast border around my lonely completed square, and it will be a small throw/lap-robe/whatever. It will serve as my gauge swatch should I ever return to make the throw.

That white stick in two of the photos is a 12-inch ruler, just for perspective’s sake.

The bottom photo is the back side - with (for a wonder!) all the ends neatly stowed away!

The two with the ruler are the full mini-throw.

The top photo is a close-up of one intersection of log 5 and the border.

The fourth photo is a close-up of the central square and the camo border.

December 24th, 2013
Unbelievably, there have been yet more corrections this year to the pattern on the Lion Brand website!! Will they ever get it completely ‘corrected’?? What’s wrong with their design process, that patterns are released upon the unsuspecting knitting public in such need of revisions??? Has this been their habit for their whole long history? If so, it’s a wonder that the company is still around! Thumbs-down for such cavalier treatment of the yarn-buying public!