Direction of Least Resistance

This afghan has been more interesting than I expected, which means that there have been more decisions to make.

Here is the current progress -- I've finally defined the length.

The bottom row of half chevrons is in the lighter colorway. The next row, the one in progress, is in the darker colorway, as will be the next one above it to complete dark chevrons. The next two rows will be the lighter colorway, and the final top row will be the dark colorway.

Here are close-ups of the corners. On the left, once I decided it was wide enough, I simply picked up 30 stitches, and then decreased at the beginning of each row on each side (so that each side decreases). I did that for 10 ridges (20 rows -- I know it looks a little wider, but it isn't, and this will come out with the final blocking), and then changed colors and knitted until it was decreased away.

On the right edge, after the last full piece, I decreased at the bottom instead of increasing, which made the turn, and continued in the same way, changing colors after 10 ridges.

Doing the edges was interesting, especially the right side, because I wasn't sure going in what I'd have to do until I saw it. Starting the next row of half chevrons was even more fun.

I wanted to figure out the easiest way to knit these segments, the way which made the best sense when knitting. This would mean making it so that when I had to pick up stitches, it would be on the 'right' side of the piece, and that I would pick up, instead of trying to do a double cast off and decreasing

I turned the strip I had and turned it, trying to decide what to do, and actually picked up on the left side before quickly deciding that wouldn't work how I wanted.

I finally realized that I needed to start on the right, and that I would be reversing every element from how I knitted the bottom row of segments.

To knit a segment on this row, I've put in figures for the hot pink one. I had 30 stitches on the needle, and picked up 10 (the pink 10) to make 40 on the needles. Each row is knitted down from A, starting by knitting 2 together, and at the other end of the row, the last stitch is knitted together with one of the stitches along the 'green 10' edge. Since a stitch is decreased on each ridge, by the end there are 30 stitches, which starts the next segment by picking up 10 more.

To turn the B corner, I had picked up for the small black segment and increased one on each ridge at the right edge, and then when I added the variegated yarn, I increased until I had enough stitches over 30 on the needle to decrease away by the end of the 10 ridges in that color, so I would end up with 30 stitches on the needle before picking up the next 10 for the hot pink segment. Simply by changing from increasing to decreasing created the top right corner.

I hope that makes some sense. So far, this has been a lot of fun.