Yesterday, it was 93 degrees. Today? 65 and grey and rainy. It feels like knitting weather finally, and I couldn't be more pleased! Here I come, to spend more than I ought to at the yarn store!
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| In progress! Apprx2 balls of yarn |
So this is a photo of my newly finished shawl when it was about half way through. Maybe not even that far. I picked up the pattern and the shawl after our house caught on fire in November of 2011. I was without knitting supplies (and a kitchen, and a house), so I took a day trip to small-town Minnesota (Stillwater!) and visited the LYS, which is pretty darn great. It's called Darn Knit Anyway, and the women who work there were unbelievably friendly to this still very shell-shocked young woman who couldn't really figure anything out. I knew that I wanted a long term project, and one that had an easily memorizable pattern repeat, so that it could be soothing rather than frustrating. I pulled up a Brooklyn Tweed baby blanket pattern, and decided that the best thing to do would be to completely alter the yarn weight and needle size, and make myself a shawl. The pattern is called Wool Leaves, and it's also a stunning baby blankey! I pulled three balls of Rowan Felted Tweed off the shelves and somehow thought that would be enough (I ended up buying two more!)
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| Pre blocking |
And then I sat down and started knitting. This was a comprehensive project. It took me nearly a year to complete, though if I had sat down and really worked at it, I could have done it in a month ish. It's been my constant travelling companion - traveled to Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL, plus all over town. I was beginning to despair of ever finishing it. I kept saying, "by the end of this month," and the end of the month would come, and no dice. Finally, I told myself that I couldn't start any new projects, OR buy new yarn before I finished it. I managed to hold myself to one of those goals - though the project I started has been in the design phase since HP7-1 came out, so it only sort of counts. (Right?) Two nights ago I very carefully started the blocking process, and was briefly horrified by how wide it got. I had originally intended to block it so it was still a little bumpy, but that somehow fell by the wayside. Instead, I have the monstrosity below - those are full size beach towels it's drying on!
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| Blocking! |
Although I still have to weave in my ends, I'm super pleased with it! I think it'll drape nicely - it's currently a little stiff from drying, but its sitting crumpled on my bed, which should solve that problem nicely. I suppose I can't call it done yet - the ends have to be woven in, but I feel like it's done.
And having the shawl finished feels like the end of a very rough year. I started this shawl in the aftermath of a house fire - however flippant I may be about it, it was terrifying and we were very, very lucky. I knitted it while we lived in a hotel, and then in a rental. I knitted it when my granmom was not doing well. I knitted it when we put our cat down. I knitted it through the death of a friend's child. And I finished it almost exactly a week after my grandpa died. There were a lot of good things that happened - another friend had her second baby, several friends got married, I got a job - but this shawl has weathered storms already. I think it'll keep me warmer because of it.
