I’d love to see a close-up picture of a corner.

Zontee says: Hi Beth, I think that the most important thing to keep in mind as you’re sewing on the border is to keep even tension as you flatten both pieces. Once you have made a few repeats of the border, measure it. Let’s say you’ve got 5 repeats for 15 inches (I’m just making up arbitrary numbers for this example). Measure the outside edge of your afghan to see how big it is. Let’s say it’s 120 inches. Then you know that it’s going to be around 40 repeats. Towards the end of your sewing, you can probably tell about how many more repeats you’re going to need, so you may be able to stretch (or not stretch/gather) the border slightly, so that it ends evenly at the end of a repeat.

It’s probably best to start away from the corner, so that your join isn’t right on the corner, which might be a less forgiving place to join it up. There are some great photos of completed Tree of Life Afghans on Flickr. Here’s one from Sinead that might be helpful to you and here’s one by another knitter. Good luck!

Zontee says: Hi Beth, don’t forget to check out Corinna’s last post, in which she talks about sewing up the border.

My only question at this point, is how do I work the border at the corners? Do I knit the border in 1 long piece for all 4 sides, or do I make 4 separate pieces, one for each side? I want to make sure the corners look smooth.

Zontee says: Hi Liz, you can find all blog posts related to the knit-along by clicking “Knit-Along” under the “Categories” heading in the left-hand column. Then, at the bottom of each post there is a link that says, “000 comments” (where 000 is whatever number of comments there are on that post). Click that link and you’ll go directly to the comments section of that post.

I’m already thinking ahead to the border. I don’t think the instructions gave any guidelines as to how to join the end of the border back to the beginning. Are any of you planning on a provisional cast-on and grafting the start to the end? Any other tricks to make this appear reasonably seamless? I’m still wondering why the border is made separately and sewn on. Why not pick up stitches as we go and knit it right onto the afghan?

Zontee says: Hi Beth, a provisional cast-on is an interesting idea and worth exploring. The border is made separately because the way the tulip-bud motif folds inwards on itself will cause the border to have a different gauge than the rest of the afghan and picking up stitches may cause the afghan to pucker at the border. Using “invisible” seaming techniques like the mattress stitch will make the afghan look neater. P.S. Thanks for all the help you’ve given other knit-along participants!

Zontee says: Hi Susan, the pattern was offered free to readers for a limited time during May and the beginning of June, but it is still available for purchase on our website. There’s no need to sign up to participate, just work at your own pace and join in the conversation here on the blog. For all the blog posts relating to the knit-along, just click on the “Knit-Along” category in the right-hand bar, or click on the links at the bottom of this entry by Corinna. Hope that clarifies things.

Happy Birthday, America!