26 Hours 45 Minutes

That's how long it took me to crochet the Dragonflies Shawl. I'm never timing anything ever again. That was such a hassle and I don't think I really wanted to know how long it actually takes. Knowing means that someone should slap me the next time I say I want to make a shawl for a swap. Seriously, how stupid was this decision?!?! The minimum time that's supposed to be spent on the large item is 2 hours. Yeesh. Well, I never claimed to be sane, right?



This is Mom modeling the shawl. After this picture she decided to run around the front yard pretending she had wings. This apple so doesn't fall too far from that tree!

 I'm really thrilled with how it turned out though. Going into this project I knew it was going to be larger than the Scarlett (Multnomah) shawl, and even though I had the finished dimensions staring me in the face on the pattern page, I still wasn't expecting it to be this big. Really came as a surprise when I went to block it. I thought it was pretty while I was working on it, but the way the lace opened up just took my breath away. Unfortunately I didn't think much about the size when I was ordering my blocking mats and now I wish I'd ordered 2 sets. Oh well, I made it work with what I had. This sucker has a wingspan of 60 inches and it's 30 inches long.

During blocking - yes, there are places where the shawl is pinned directly to the bed because I freaking need more puzzle pieces

Hanging out with the Mad Hatter and Captain Jack before blocking

I absolutely love it. Breaks my heart a bit to pack it up and ship it out. It will be winging its way to my swap partner tomorrow in the super awesome treasure chest flat rate box that I spent entirely too much time decorating yesterday when I should have been working on my socks. Since my spoilee has no idea who I am and I'm fairly certain she doesn't read my blog, I'm going to go ahead and give you all a sneak peek of what I just finished packing up. This was for the Pirates swap in the Odd Ducks group on ravelry. Yes, dragonflies are extremely piratey. Just go with me on this one ;-)

Scarlett - The Evil Shawl From Hell

Just over a month ago I decided I was going to knit a shawl for my swap partner in the Night at the Movies swap through Swappers Anonymous. It sounded like a great idea going in. I needed something to represent Gone With the Wind - one of my partner's favorite movies. What better than a red ruffly shawl inspired by one of my favorite dresses worn by Scarlett O'Hara? The pattern was Multnomah and the yarn was Cascade Heritage Paints in the 9926 colorway. Beautiful and soft and squishy - I was in love. If only I knew about this colorway's evil past... but more on that later.

This is certainly the largest knitted project I've ever tackled and I've only completed something crocheted in this size once. I really didn't think about how long this was going to take, but I was excited to get started. The first rows just flew by! I started knitting it on July 13th, and by the following week I was this far (including lack of knitting time on vacation):

When I started, I thought all that garter stitch was soothing. It's much better than miles of single crochet, but after a while it got to be quite tedious. Right around the time I was getting really bored with it, I got to change to the rippled edge. It was a great change in pace and I got to learn a new knitting technique. Go me! Bella liked it too :-)

Then disaster struck. In one evening I had to rip out the same row 3 times because I was totally distracted by an episode of Burn Notice then I ran out of yarn on the last row. I knew my shawl would hold up the shipping date of my swap box (it was due to ship July 31st and by now it was Aug 10th) so I had stayed up late to finish it so I could block it then ship it out that Friday. Can we say complete meltdown? Word of advice, staying up late to knit after a frustrating day is a BAD IDEA. By this point I was freaking out, posted a panicked plea for help in a couple of my groups on ravelry then attempted to sleep. I was so stressed about the shawl that I only got about 2 hours. Oy. I spent the next day in a horrible mood and spent all of lunch ripping out the last 4 rows. At this point I should have listened to the majority of advice and just cast off then, but I was determined to get the last repeats in. I joined some blue yarn in hopes of bringing out the blue splotches, but it clashed horribly and made it look cheap. Did I follow my instincts and rip it out right away? No - I kept knitting. On the last row I was still in a horrible mood, the blue made the shawl look worse, and I ripped those rows out again. Then I rejoined the red and cast off like I should have before. That evening I went to knitting group where I finished knitting it, and one of the women told me about how this colorway is cursed. It's beautiful yarn, but this is the 3rd project she's known of someone who has had problems using this colorway. One project involved a ton of mistakes and the other became a tedious never-ending scarf. Fair warning to anyone out there wanting to use this colorway.

Now time to block the shawl! This was the first time I've ever blocked knitting so it was a learning experience as well. Bella was "helpful" in keeping the shawl flat too. Since my lace blocking wires hadn't arrived yet (darn that ground shipping) I used dental floss to keep the lines straight. Not the best plan ever, but it mostly worked out ok.

I completely finished it on Saturday, brought it to work Monday to show it off, then shipped it out today. So much work for a complete stranger, but I'm sure she'll like it. I've never been happier to give away one of my creations though. I never want to see the damn thing again.

So what did I learn from this adventure? Gauge swatches are crucial! I don't know if I was knitting too loosely so I ran out of yarn, or if there just wasn't enough there. I also learned that if I'm going to do something insane like knit a shawl for a swap, I need to give myself LOTS of time. Also, I should just stay away from all things Gone With the Wind - I hate the movie with a firey passion, so why would I think knitting something inspired by it would be a good thing?!?!

Time to get back to some crocheting...

Firefly Swap!

I came home to the most amazing Firefly swap box EVER from magicatt!!!


Everything came wrapped up in my favorite colors with quotes on the outside of all the packages. There was a beautiful card with the theme song over the Serenity logo (seriously considering framing this cuz ti's amazing) and everything was packed in a super cool "Browncoats defending the 'verse" bag!




My cat was super thrilled with the tissue paper :-)




"You can't stop the signal"

A CD of Songs From the Black - Music inspired by Firefly and Serenity




"Two by two, hands of blue" - Blue hands button covers

River: "This food is problematic" Jayne: "Girl's a mind-readin' genius, can't even figure out how to eat an ice planet" - Hot Cocoa




"I don't believe there's a power in the 'verse that can stop Kaylee from being cheerful. Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month." - Bag made from similar fabric to Kaylee's Jacket, cocktail umbrellas for Kaylee's parasol, jacks for those long nights in space, shiny [dinosaur stitch markers][1] and a row counter on a lanyard (I can't tell you how much I love these!)




"Every well-bred petty crook knows - the small concealable weapons always go to the far left of the place setting" - Tissues that say my daily agenda is simple: get up, dress impeccably, be fabulous and repeat

"How's it sit? Pretty cunning, don'tchya think?" - Jayne hat lip balm cozy w/ Hershey's lip balm

"Time for some thrilling heroics" - Super cool journal. She even added the first two entries: 1) Dear Diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. 2) Today we were kidnapped by hill folk never to be seen again. It was the best day ever.




"Yes. Yes, this is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... This Land."

"I think we should call it... your grave!"

"Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" - Plastic dinosaurs as well as growing dinosaurs :-) Rwar!




Last but not least...

"Every planet has its own weird customs. About a year before we met, I spent six weeks on a moon where the principal form of recreation was juggling geese. My hand to God. Baby geese. Goslings. They were juggled." - A set of 3 crocheted baby geese. Yes, I attempted to juggle with them. I obviously still need more practice.

Fingerless Mitts of Doom

A couple months ago I signed up for the Triwizard Tournament Swap with my Hogwarts Swappers group on Ravelry. It sounded awesome at the beginning - something to represent each of the schools involved in the Triwizard Tournament. As soon as I started chatting with my partner and got a sense of the things she liked and the projects she likes to make, I thought I had brilliant ideas of what to make. Silly me, it didn't even occur to me that I only chose knitting projects.

To represent Durmstrang I knitted a Star Crossed Slouchy Beret and cussed the entire time. The cables didn't seem to even out for me, but at least the finished product looked good. Hats just aren't my thing. I think my spoilee will like it though - she said she loves slouchy hats :-)

 Check it out! The hat fitts on a balloon!

Bella the slouchy hat model. She doesn't looked too thrilled, but at least she's cute!

For Hogwarts I'm sending a project kit for Go Gryffindor Socks. I'm just happy that I don't have to knit them!

Last but not least, we come to the fingerless mitts of doom. That's what I'm working on this weekend. I just put the thumb stitches on spare cables and now it feels like I'm trying to knit with an octopus. It's crazy. The pattern is Susie's Reading Mitts and I'm making them to represent Beauxbatons. I thought they'd be quick and easy - that's what the pattern and other ravelry users told me anyway. Turns out they lied. I didn't realize there'd be hemming. Arg. I think they're going together faster than the Triforce Mitts I made recently, but not by much. I just want to finish them. Maybe the "quick and easy" comment was for more experienced knitters. Thanks to my "anything you can do, I can do better" mentality, I didn't even think about the extra time they'd take for me. Maybe I should go back to knitting instead of blogging.