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I've just found out that one of my good friends is pregnant - actually she's about 6 months pregnant - she lives abroad and works really hard so our contact is perforce a bit intermittent. Anyway I offered and she has accepted a cross stitched afghan for the new arrival. Problem is I don't have much of a clue what to stitch and I'm having difficulty finding just charts rather than full kits.

I'm thinking something along the lines of a beatrix potter afghan would be nice (if it exists) or something with animals on as my friend loves going to exotic places on safari etc. I don't think she'd want an alphabet or number themed one though. Can anyone help?

You could try looking at EMS which have free downloads available. I just type "EMS forum" into Google and it comes up. It has a download section which includes a set of "babybook animals" - I think there are 12 animals including puppy, duck, piglet, sheep, cow, cat, rooster, bluebird and others. There is also a zoo collection. Each animal only measures about 30 x 30 stitches, perfect for afghan squares.

If you want to look at how they stitch up, I used the babybook animals on an afghan myself recently - if you look in the Stitch-a-Long section it's entitled "Sarah's Baby Afghan" and won't be far back as I recently posted on that thread.

Hi Lessa

I have a 21 page booklet for an afghan Safari that we could do a deal for if you wish !


Let me know if you are interested


kerry

Wow, that's gorgeous, Kerry! Good job I've already done mine, I'd be after it myself.

Sarah, many thanks - I remember your afghan and it was lovely. I don't think I want to committ to stitching the name though so will have to think whether the EMS animals would vary enough for it.

Kerry that does look fun! If it's ok, I think I'll give it a couple of days for everyone to comment before coming to a final decision but will definitely keep your offer in mind.

Sarah's afghan was very gorgeous! I really like Kerry's too.. oh dear the decisions!!!! Glad I don't have to decide
Faith

Lessa54 wrote:Sarah, many thanks - I remember your afghan and it was lovely. I don't think I want to committ to stitching the name though so will have to think whether the EMS animals would vary enough for it.

Kerry that does look fun! If it's ok, I think I'll give it a couple of days for everyone to comment before coming to a final decision but will definitely keep your offer in mind.

No probs Lessa just let me know if you want it

Done some more digging looking at more general charts and found this:

http://www.sewandso.co.uk/cgi-bin/find/ ... ch_results" target="_blank

Wondering whether this would look right stitched on an afghan? There are 12 designs and I found on another site that the widest is 81 stitches wide and the tallest is 133 high, though I don't know whether that includes text or not.

What does everyone think?

I bet it would be lovely, however, it sounds like some of them might be a bit big - my afghan was 16 count and at 133 stitches high that comes out at over 8 inches. Afghan squares are usually about 5 x 5 inches.

Are you going to use an afghan with lots of small squares or one that has a large central square? I've stitched 3 afghans, 2 where winnie the pooh and 1 was popcorn they were one large design in the middle of the afghan. What about doing the precious moments two-by-two which is an ark with animals on it?

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your ideas. In the end I've decided to go with the beatrix potter afghan kit. I really like the wildlife safari one but when I looked into it, it requires Zweigart Hearthside fabric and I could only find that in the US. In the end, getting the kit from sew and so will work out quicker and easier and a bit cheaper which is a factor given I've got to post the end result to Belgium.

Will post an SAL thread, probably after Christmas