Captain America Afghan

For Jaxon's birthday, I decided that I was going to finish an afghan that I started for him quite some time ago. This Captain America shield afghan is probably one that you've seen making the rounds, and as crochet afghans go, it's really pretty easy to make. However, as crafters are known to do, I had a tendency to put it down after I'd started it to start and finish other projects. 

But since his birthday was coming up (and since as of the last Avengers movie, things are not looking so good for our superhero), I thought now would be the perfect time to finish this project. Here's a look at this patriotic afghan.

The Materials

The yarn I used for this project was a mix of some yarn I already had in my stash (the blue and white) and a red that I chose as a complementary color. I used a size I hook with these yarns:

• 1 skein Caron One Pound Royalty
• 2 skeins Caron One Pound White
• 10 skeins Bernat Super Value True Red

If you prefer Red Heart brand yarns (as many people do for afghans), these colors work well for superhero themed projects:

• Red Heart Super Saver Cherry Red
• Red Heart Super Saver Royal
• Red Heart Super Saver White

The Pattern and Notes

The inspiration for this blanket came from the Lion Brand Little Superhero Blanket Pattern, which is a free crochet pattern. But, that pattern uses a chunky yarn and makes a smaller sized blanket for a young child.

Since I wanted to make a larger blanket for a 10-year old, I decided to "wing it." Really, if you look at photos of Captain America's shield, it's easy to get a feel for how large the red and white bands are in relation to the blue center circle.

This Captain America shield afghan is a simple double crochet circle with increases as needed to get to the size you desire. Here's a tutorial for creating a crochet circle to get you started.

The pattern I used for the white star in the center was a free pattern from Jessie at Home for a Star Trivet. I just continued increasing rounds until I reached 13 total rounds.

For the entire afghan, I used the following repeats:

• 24 DC rounds - blue
• 16 DC rounds - red
• 16 DC rounds - white
• 16 DC rounds - red
• 1 crab stitch round - red

Because the entire afghan is worked in double crochet, I thought finishing in a crab stitch would add some variety. Here's a close up look at the crab stitch border.

Advice for Creating Large Crochet Circles

The biggest challenge with this project will be keeping a large crochet circle flat and looking like a circle. My best advice is to remember that as you increase the size of your circle, if you continue placing increase stitches at even intervals (2DC, 1DC, 1DC, 1DC, 2DC, all the way around, for example), then eventually your project will start to look more like an octagon, an then a nonagon, and then a decagon. Flashback to your geometry classes, I know - but you get the idea!

If you want it to smooth out into a circular shape, you're going to have to randomly increase on some of the rows so that all of the increases don't perfectly line up with each other (which is what eventually forms points in the project).

Then, you'll need to start watching out for curling and waving. If your project is curling at the edges (like a bowl shape or a hat), you don't have enough stitches and you need to increase more frequently. And if your project is waving or ruffling at the edges, then you have too many stitches. You will get a feel for it!

Attaching the Star

To sew the star to the front of the afghan, I lined up the star on top of the blue circle where I wanted it to sit on the final afghan. Then I cut long pieces of white yarn and tied down each of the five points of the star.

I used the long tails of those pieces of yarn to sew the star to the blue circle, being careful to only sew into the front posts of the blue stitches (so as not to have any white showing through to the back of the afghan). If you catch the back loops of the star as shown below, the yarn you are using to sew the star to the afghan should blend nicely when you're finished sewing.

In the photo below, the stitches to the left of the yarn have already been sewn down and the stitches to the right of the yarn have not yet been sewn. See how they look very similar?

The finished size of this afghan is 91" in diameter across the center of the afghan. That's 7 feet 7 inches - enough to cover a king size bed! And perfect for snuggling under!

Other Superhero Afghan Options

Some of you may remember that years ago (when my oldest son was 5 years old - he's almost 13 now by the way!?!?!) that I made a crochet Spiderman Afghan for him. And he still uses it to this day!

It has held up well, and I'm quite sure that at the time (and maybe even right now) many people were thinking "why on Earth is this woman making such HUGE afghans for such little boys?" Well, it's because those little boys grow up to become young men and their fascination with superheroes has not wavered yet. They still love them.

And here's a peak at what both boys look like with their afghans today. Aidyn's is a little smaller on him than it was when I originally made it, and Jaxon's is a little bigger on him than it will be in a few years. But they have lots more years of enjoyment left in these. 

So, I would encourage you to consider making superhero afghans larger than you think you'll need to. They will use these for a lot longer than their toddler and childhood years!

Some other superhero projects you might enjoy:

• Captain America Hat
• Spiderman Afghan
• Captain America and Spiderman Crazy Hair Tutorial

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