Wedding Shawl- Done!

My god, what a ride this project has been.

From fighting every second of one yarn, to running with the wolves on another, this project has been a blast.

I hate to give it away. In all honesty, I probably will never see it again. In some way, that's heartbreaking to me. In other ways, I think it's gratifying.

Here it is, taking a long drink:

And, after a stretch:

And rolled up, waiting for packaging:

I will try to get myself together and get photos of it on an actual person. The bridal shower is tomorrow and maybe I can get her to model it for me.

Yeah, there's mistakes- one intentional (as usual) and the other-the join in the border. I strongly dislike the look of it.

All in all, this project rates high on my satisfaction list.

It's Done

And in the process of blocking.

Wholly crap, it's beautiful!

Breathing Room

The shawl is coming along.

I have 3 days to finish it. 3 days. I'm chugging away at it. The border is about 20 repeats away from being finished.

I think I can make it, I just wish I had more breathing room.

It's That Time.

It's time to play our favorite game:

ASK ME ANYTHING.

Go ahead, you know you want to.

Leave a comment asking a question and I'll answer it. It can be about anything. No really, anything. I'll be back to answer them on Saturday.

So, ask away.


PS. 36 repeats done! Eeek!

17,420

That's how many stitches are invested into this shawl already. And- I'm only on repeat 26 out of 36. That also doesn't include how many times I made mistakes- causing me to tink slowly back- stitch by stitch and then reknit correctly.

So far I haven't left any errors unfixed.

Back to knitting before The Boy wakes up from his nap.

Hey, was my kid the only super cranky one this morning or what?

Ideas Come And Go.

I had a great idea. I've been wanting to redo my blog for awhile, adding a banner up top and some new blogs to the sidebar. The banner I thought of had an interesting picture with fancy lettering. My friend Colleen would have been the perfect artist for that.

But I don't have her number (she moved) and I have no email addy for her.

Now what?

Just Imagine A Green Post

The amazing thing about lace- for me anyways- is that I can't put it down. Hubs would probably say that this goes for any knitting, but I think lace in particular is hard for me to stop. I'm done with 10 repeats, 26 more to do. I know it seems like alot left to do, but I'm truly loving every stitch on this thing. The yarn seems to just flow out of the ball and on to the needles like it's made for this work. The repeats are easy to remember and I have no trouble finding where I am in the pattern. Lace should make sense- the yarn overs and decreases should go in a certain spot. With the white yarn I was fighting every second of it. This time I'm letting it flow and you can see the difference it makes.

I know the colors are not wedding-y but I want her to wear this any time she wants and the colors suit her.

Not alot of knitting is going to get done this weekend. Frankly, it's 9:30 and I can't believe I'm still sober, with it being St. Patrick's Day and all. But Hubs and I have plans. We're heading up to Boston for the Dropkick Murphy's show at Harper's Ferry. I won a ticket lottery and couldn't say no.

That said, I'm going to make green pancakes and work on the lace some more before we go.

And oh, we have to also chip off an inch of ice from the car. The ride up is going to be interesting, isn't it?

Yarn Talks

I've been fighting the shawl for days now. Only 3 repeats done in 3 days. Sad, sad, sad.

This morning, after discovering a huge mistake 3 rows back, I decided to frog it and work with the yarn that I originally purchased for this project.

So far, no problems. Not. A. Single. One. I'm through a full repeat in under 2 hours.

How is that possible??

Yarn talks, I swear. Now if I had just listened 2 days ago I would be much farther along than I am now.

And if I can also rant for one second- if I hear one more knit blogger say they have an advance copy (or copies) of Friday Night Knit Club and I don't get to read one, I'm going to be very, very pissed. I want to read this book. Now. /Rant.

Calculating

I have a bridal shower on April 1st. I started this shawl yesterday and so far, I have 2 repeats completed. Yes, 24 hours- 2 repeats. Any chance this thing is going to be done by then? There's only 34 more repeats to go before I can start the border...

Crap.

(Thanks for the advice on the shawl from a few weeks ago. To answer a question that was asked a few times, I'm not doing a blanket or afghan because my family is making her a quilt- I think. Typically someone in my family makes the bride a quilt. That's why I couldn't do one.)

First Ever Plied Yarn

It looks like real, actual, (mostly) usable yarn! I had a couple of breaks here and there, but all in all I'm really happy. I'm going to spin the rest of it up sometime this week and knit something-anything from this yarn!

Yipee!

When In Doubt

Eat more Girl Scout Cookies.

I picked up my watch. Honestly, it's beautiful. It has all of the proper diamonds, it matches my engagement ring, and it works.

Liv is coming along swimmingly. I should be finished with the front today and starting the sleeves this weekend.

GSC- I did not hide them from Hubs as I threatened at SnB on Wednesday night, although the hoarder in me wanted to. Girl Scout Cookies, mmmmm- what's your favorite?

Who Overhauled Who Here?

I'm cruising on Liv. Beautiful sweater, beautiful yarn, beautiful pattern. I will do another Elsebeth Lavold sweater. I admit to a moment of...um, stupidness though. I couldn't figure out which was the right and wrong side of the chart. One of the SnB'ers saved me by smartly pointing out that you don't cable on the wrong side. Duh.

As for the incompetent post, well...there's 2 stories. For one, I won't post on craftster for awhile. Not just because of one person, although she may think that. I hope she doesn't. It's a collection of reasons.

Secondly, I own a watch that has been in repair for 3 months. They called to tell me it's ready. Goody! Well, there's bad news. But first, let's start at the beginning.

My watch is a Tissot watch. It's not a cheap watch, but I got it with an employee discount so it was the same price as, say- a Bulova.

I wore it for years, then got pregnant and it didn't fit. The watch was stored in my jewelery box until I went back to school last semester. There are no clocks in my school. Cell phones have to be turned off. So, I needed my watch. The damn thing's battery was dead.

I take it to a local jeweler. They get the back off the change the battery, but can't get it back on. So, they send it out to their watch repair guy. 1 week later I get a call saying it wasn't the battery, but it needed a $75 overhaul. Ugh. I need a watch. Go for it.

2 more weeks go by. The watch comes in. I pick it up, I wear it for a week. I look down at it while in class one night and notice the word "Tissot" says "ssot". Yes, the "Ti" is worn away.

Grr.

So, I call the jeweler. He says bring it in and tells me he'll send it out and there will be no charge. That was Dec. 14th.

I get a call today. The jeweler says the watch is in, but Tissot doesn't have that face anymore. But they replaced it with a beautiful new blue one.

"Oh? Light blue? Because I gave you a white mother of pearl one," I say.

No. Dark Blue. Navy blue. But it's beautiful.

Grrr.

I hate dark faced watches.

"But the good news is, they overhauled the watch for free," he tells me.

Yeah, that's what got me into this mess in the first place.

*And I'll tell you what- my original watch had diamonds in the face. If I walk into that store and that face doesn't have diamonds in it I will grab the guy and start choking, I swear to god. If you see a story about a woman gone nuts on a jeweler on CNN.com, just chuckle. Yeah, it's me.

Sick of Incompetent People

And it's not even noon.

Going back to bed.

More later.

Stash Closet- DONE!

Well, mostly done. I have to add a couple of things, one of which is my spinning wheel. It will fit sideways, as long as I slide all of the hanging compartments over.

I'm going to take another photo tomorrow, when the sun is shining and the closet is actually done. The wheel is in my car and with it being -2 below outside and all, I really don't want to have this project done that bad.

So, from the start:

To the middle:

And the finished project.

Anyone else notice that there's room to grow??

Hehheee.

Hot To Trot

A couple of days ago The Boy had "the trots" (there's way, way too much information on that link, just to warn you, lol). Ew. Trust me, it was bad. He had 3 baths in 1 day. He went through 5 different outfits. He pooped everywhere. Including once in a basket of clean laundry. All over the clean laundry.

He's still not 100%. Poor guy.

Well, anyways, he gave it to me. Yesterday I was nasty. Today I'm feeling a bit better. Still not leaving the house though.

I treated myself to new stitch markers. I love stars. I found them on Etsy.com at a shop called Smoosh. There's others- go see.

The stash closet has stash in it. The holders should be coming tomorrow or Monday. Yippee! It will be much more organized then.

And I started a new sweater. From Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Knits.

I don't want to jinx it, but I think this may be my Maryland Sheep and Wool sweater.

Sorry to the NH SnB'ers who expected me Wednesday. Trust me when I say you didn't want me there anyways.