And That’s a Wrap …

… Or, to be precise, a shawl. That’s right. My Knitting Olympics shawl, finished in just eight days without tears or tantrums.

Miralda in Handspun Baby LLama

Backlit Nupps

Honestly, I feel a little let down. I could have started spinning for this during the opening ceremonies and still completed it by the end of the Olympics. I was so nervous to sign up because I thought there was no way I could do this and I don’t like to fail. And then it turned out to be a piece of cake. I didn’t make any big knitting mistakes, the pattern was correct and easy to follow, and I didn’t finish spinning up my last bobbin because I realized that I’d have more than enough yarn with the two original skeins. I never even pulled an all-nighter! (Just a few half-nighters, but having an almost-three-year-old who still wakes up several times a night makes 9 p.m. the new 3 a.m. for me.)

However, this surprising exercise in overachieving has taught me some things. This was my largest handspun project, and once I buckled down and spun in earnest the spinning part did not take as long as I assumed it would. I managed to make more yarn and finer yarn than any I’ve spun before.

Best of all, I think I finally put enough time into lace to become comfortable with the process. I didn’t use a lifeline (a piece of waste yarn threaded through the stitches every once in a while to keep things in order if you have to rip back several rows to fix a big mistake) because I could check myself by making sure that the stitches of the row I was working on were lining up correctly with the previous rows. Mistakes were spotted as they were made and corrected right away – a new knitting skill that made knitting lace a fun and relaxing endeavor.

So the question you’ve all been waiting for: Do I get to award myself the gold? It kind of feels like winning because the major competition was injured, wiped out, made tragically dumb errors, showed off inappropriately, and/or got busted for performance enhancing drugs and my easy routine was the best of the rest, but yes.

Karabosse wins gold! (Medal to be posted here as soon as Franklin gets them done.)

(By the way – the entire process of the Knitting Olympics is self-regulated. Pick a project challenging to you, work as hard as you can, and if you finish it in time award yourself the gold.)

I’d like to thank my family for pretending to enjoy eating bean burritos and pasta for a couple of dinners. And thanks to all my enthusiastic friends and those who commented. Your support was awesome! I couldn’t have done it without you! Sniff, sniff.

Almost Done: Day 8

Fresh off the Needles

Specifications:

• Pattern: Miralda’s Triangular Shawl by Nancy Bush (in Knitted Lace of Estonia: Techniques, Patterns, and Traditions)
• Yarn: 585 yards (147 g.) of two-ply handspun baby llama roving, 20 – 22 wpi
• Needles: US size 6 addi lace needle
• Modifications: None, but in hindsight I wish I’d changed a few things. My recommendations for anyone considering knitting this: cast on with a needle one size larger. My cast on edge is not quite as stretchy as the lace border. The top edging is created without slipping a stitch, which leads to a rustic, bumpy edge. You can clearly see this in the photos of the shawl in the book. Now that my rustic and bumpy shawl is done, I think the edge looks fine by comparison. However, were I to make this again, I’d add an extra stitch to the garter border on either side so I could slip the initial stitch loosely, then follow the pattern as written.
• Note: Despite fierce blocking, this shawl does not lay flat across the top. There’s a slight point at the center. Perhaps it’s simply a side-effect of bottom-up shawl knitting (I’ve only made center-back down shawls before). Worn as shown in the book, folded over at the top, it forms an attractive collar.