My favourite afghan pattern is called American Beauty Rose and is taken from a knitting pattern book called The Ultimate Book of Knit Afghans by American School of Needlework. It's only a two row pattern, but produces beautiful ripples, and you can create your own colour designs however you want. I have knitted 22 of these beauties over the past couple of years (as gifts) and one only takes me about 6 evenings to make on number 11 circular needles. I have used different yarns, including Caron http://www.caron.com/ and Red Heart http://www.coatsandclark.com/ but I like the Lion Brand Homespun best as it is so soft and cuddly. http://cache.lionbrand.com//yarns/homespun.htm . There are so many lovely colours. However, the first one I ever knitted only cost me $2 - I bought a huge bag of matching yarns at a yard sale and I have never looked back. The seller had been going to knit an afghan but never got around to it! You definitely need a circular needle for these as I first tried using the straight kind and had a lot of problems with the stitches falling off!