Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Pretty in Green

Have you ever knit something that made you question your sanity? Then, when it was finished, did you step back and look at it and think; Wow, how did I do that? This project was one of those for me.

It started simply enough, with The Loopy Ewe's final camp project. (May I just add that I love how this picture looks like it's blowing in the breeze, which is totally was. I love it!)

The goal was to knit something using at least 800 yards of yarn.

My biggest struggle is always to choose a pattern and the yarn to go with it. I finally settled on Dream in Color Baby which is laceweight in Happy Forest. It looked like a lovely deep rich green, almost a forest green on my monitor. When it arrived it was lighter and brighter. A bit of a shock but I loved it. I ordered two skeins since the very generous 700 yards/skein would not be enough for this project. I knew I had been wanting to knit a larger version of the Gail shawl ever since I finished my lovely little shawlette version. I set to work and started out quickly and it was going very well. Until. Well, it got huge.

The rows were over 500 stitches apiece at the end there and it took some focus and fortitude to knit or purl through one. I found that with this yarn I couldn't just zone out on the purl rows either because the flat nature of it on the needle made it too easy to cross a yarn over with a neighboring stitch without meaning to. I had to pay attention all the time. I had blocked a small portion of it on the needles when I first started to check that I was liking the gauge and I measured it and determined that I would knit 15 repeats of the chart. That should mean it would be 60 inches wide. Well my friends, it grew.

It's bigger. I still love it, although it's bigger than planned and I can't wait to show it to absolutely everyone I know.

I apologize now. You will definitely get sick of having it thrust in your face. I just can't seem to help it though. My husband is already sick of looking at it.

I wore it to Knit & Crochet night last night and wove in the ends (after blocking so they would have less chance of coming out) and just loved the feel of it around my shoulders.

My emotions with this project definitely ran the gamut from: Oh, no big deal, I'll whip this out no problem. At the start to: What the h*&% was I thinking? When those rows got so long and now. Now my friends, I can't believe it.

I cannot believe that this lovely, amazing, epic green shawl, dripped from my needles, that I created this with some sticks and a large ball of string. It's somewhat awe-inspiring. It makes me feel like I can tackle the world.

At least the world of knitting.

I promise to tell you more about Wisconsin later this week but I felt like this shawl deserved it's own post. It definitely deserves it's own veneration in my book. Thanks for bearing with me while I waxed poetic about it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

lovely. simply lovely. I cannot wait to see & fondle it in person.

Karen

Teresa said...

Beautiful, indeed! (but how big is it?)

FrancesandtheBee said...

It's beautiful!