I'm late!

So I was a little late on this present for mother's day. What is a month between kin? The Vintage Shawl from Runway Knits is finally completed. I also know that I promised to never knit the worlds longest scarf again, but I did not say anything about shawls. After I reached the much needed 70 inches I decided it wasn't long enough and added one more ball of yarn. So the end total was 75 inches without fringe. As you can see being modeled on the lovely Lavendergrl it is very drapey and drippy. I think it looks awesome and amazingly enough the shawl and the model's hair match. I should suggest my mom change her hair color to look this cool(or should I say hip).
There are mistakes (just a few). I got confused on the bind off and the ends aren't exactly the same (oh well). Also for some reason, it is more vertically striped then I imaged it would be. But the end result is a nice shawl that I think my mom will like. The added bonus is that the thing is warm. One night while furiously knitting away I fell asleep on the futon shawl in hand. At some point while snoozing I got chilled and draped the shawl over myself. Other than the needle poking me in the face, it was rather cozy.

I would also like to post that I did not get the lab trainer job at the other library. I am actually happy about that as the other library was further from my house then the library I currently work at. My boss said that they did really like me but, the selected candidate had more experience in that field.

Saucers for eyes

This starts with the confession that I didn't get the mother's vintage shawl done. I knitted and knitted and knitted and knitted. For some reason it just did not get longer than 57 inches. I knitted and measured and then knitted some more and still I was at 57 inches. It was pitiful. I felt pitiful. Friday night I passed out on my futon knitting. I woke up at 3:30am to an infomercial for acne medicine my shawl in my lap. I admit in my less than coherent state I threw my project in the floor and rolled over and spent the rest of the night on the futon.

My mom was very understanding when she tried to wrap what I had done around herself and it was obviously not long enough. She even said, that the color was perfect. I am still trying to get the present done as soon as I could, but the pressure is off.

For this post I wanted a picture of one of those creepy saucer eyed waifs to convey my affected sadness. In my quest for the picture I found this site http://besmirched.tripod.com/eyes.html . This site is not for the faint of heart those eyes are the stuff of nightmares. But I did steal the saucer eyed kitty picture. Actually I have another real kitty picture that looks almost exactly the same, creepy very creepy.

50 inches...

Okay, I am at 50 inches on the vintage shawl it is Friday night and I need to be knitting not blogging, but I thought I would check in for those of you dying to know about my progress. I am chucking the whole idea that everything will be done by Sunday morning. My goal is to get the thing off the needles (all 70 inches knitted and bound off). Blocking and fringe will have to wait until after mother's day. I hope my mom understands, if not I will have to throw myself down on the floor and kick my feet while holding my breathe. It use to work on her when I was 5, maybe it will now.

Also since I am blogging today I got up at O'dark:30 and went to yon string store to knit before work. Why you ask? Well let me tell you, some local TV guy did a story on Stitch n Pitch at Knitorious. We were all there to show how fun and cute we knitters are. How much fun I can be that early is negligible, but I showed up anyway to be sort of cute. If you are quick at one point you can see the back of my head, and my hair does look fabulous. Follow the link, I think it is a silly piece of fluff, but my knitting tribe is there and that makes me happy. http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/InsideFox/Detail?contentId=6502395&version=4&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=5.2.1

Vintage

Awhile back I checked out Runway Knits by Berta Karapetyan from the library. The book had some stunning patterns in it and I particularly fell in love with the Vintage Shawl. I read through the direction and thought, hmmm, I think I can knit that. So with credit card in pocket and mother's day in the future I thought, "I shall knit this for my Mother's Day present." Okay that was the plan, and a fine plan it was.

I have this thing for Queensland Collection Kathmandu. It is just so soft and smells so delicious that I decided to fore go the recommended bulky yarn for an Aran. I mean what is the difference between such close friends, right? In the end the difference was about 25 stitches, but again, what is 25 stitches for my mommy. I even picked out a wine color that I know she will love. The shawl will look perfectt draped over her or the back of her couch. So I purchased the estimated 12 balls of yarn and an extra 3 more case my math skills fail me, which they often do.

For the first time ever I gauge swatched the project to be sure of my cast on. I am so glad I did too, I noticed how badly the edges rolled. What looked like a design element in the picture was actually completely furled edges, yuck. I know my mom would notice that right away. So to a smart knitter I went. She suggested a garter stitch edge. How simple, how silly that I couldn't think of that on my own, but this is why I love knowing such smart knitters.

So here I am blogging when I should be knitting, 7 days away and I am at inch 33 with 37 more inches to go. I have to get this done with fringe by next Sunday, YIKES!!!

Wish me luck I will keep you posted, but know that wherever I am and whatever I am doing sitting next to me in a bag is a project which is like a time bomb waiting to explode. And I am probably knitting on it or thinking about knitting on it. Tick, tock, tick, tock.