A Knit-Along (In Pictures)

"You're the way my fox was. He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I've made him my own and now he is unique in the world."

~ Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It's really pretty awesome to finally have yarnie* friends.

Our little group of Twitter Knitterati has been working on a knit-along - Wendy Johnson's Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl KAL 2012 - and on July 31, 2012 I completed the project.  This was a particular milestone for me, as it was my first knitalong and also my first shawl.  I'm really happy with the results.

Allow me to walk you through my adventure, in pictures.

1.  The Swatch

This project was nothing short of serendipity for me.  

Since Wendy's blog is one of my favorites, I'd known she was having a KAL, but I never considered it, because her shawls always looked so intricate and intimidating.  

A few days before the first clue came out, one of the members of the Twitter Knitterati group suggested we all do the knit-along.  So I took a leap of faith and bought the pattern.

The pattern was $2, and I didn't want to use a card for a $2 online purchase, so I opened up my Paypal account to deposit some cash.  Lo and behold, my account balance was $10 ... leftover from God-only-knows when.  I think the last time I used Paypal was ... 2005?  It felt rather like finding a $10 bill in a winter jacket pocket.  And a little bit more, because it was there just when I needed it.

So I bought the pattern and read the introduction, intending to make a shopping list for supplies.  Turns out, not only did I already have the yarn in the right weight (KnitPicks Imagination Hand Painted Sock Yarn in Ruby Slippers), but also the needles and necessary notions.

My friends, this KAL turned out to be (essentially) free.  Serendipity!  

I knit the swatch that first night.

2.  The Hang-Ups

Things didn't go so smoothly after that initial Serendipity!

My first attempt at casting on that many stitches (277) was unsuccessful because I estimated the length of my long-tail all wrong.  Rip, rip:

So I surrendered my favorite cast-on method (long-tail) and settled on the simple cable cast-on method:

And kept track of the count the old-fashioned way.

It wasn't smooth sailing from there.

Very early on, I realized I had somehow managed to twist my knitting (see the twist there, under the stitch marker?).  Lesson learned: stop and take a look at the project every once in awhile, especially if it involves lots of stitches.

The other big challenge for me were the Nupps.  I had never heard of a Nupp.  I tried the 5-Stitch Nupp, and it just ended up looking like a kNot.  But I still wanted to keep an extra bit of detail in the pattern, so I settled on the 3-Stitch Nupp.

I'm still not 100% thrilled with the outcome.  They weren't uniform: some stuck out while others laid flat.  But this piece will not be inspected closely and judged, so I will say that they are "good enough".  I had to seriously stifle my perfectionist side to be able to say that.

3. Perseverance

After the Nupps rows, it was all about pushing on.  "Just keep knitting, just keep knitting ..."  I could hear Dory from Finding Nemo in my head, always.  A mantra, of sorts.

I won't say it became monotonous; the good thing about a KAL is that it's broken up into pieces.  You only look at one small part at a time, so you never get overwhelmed by the whole, because you're not sure exactly how big the whole really will be.

I'm just not a "big project" kind of girl.  You've seen what happens when I start anything bigger than a sock or mitten (two baby blankets, still waiting patiently while their original intended recipients enter kindergarten).

Another helpful part was just the shape of the shawl itself.  It tapers as it grows, so the rows get shorter, so it goes faster the further into it you get.

My only cause for anxiety near the end was this:

That's how much yarn was left when I bound off the shawl.  

I could see my skein getting smaller and smaller, but without a scale, there wasn't much I could do but hope and pray.  At one point I had 7 rows and the bind-off left, so I was praying for a Hanukkah miracle.  Extend the yarn, Jehovah, as you did the oil all those years ago.

Ok, as a Christian talking about yarn, that might be a bit blasphemous, but trust me when I tell you that the prayer was heartfelt.

4.  The Big Finale

Two weeks after the last KAL clue came out, I finished my shawl.  I put it in a bucket of warm water to soak and went to search out my pins.

The pins I was just sure I had.

The pins that even today are in hiding, eluding me.

Happily, I found a stash of safety pins, which worked just fine to lightly block the shawl on the spare bed:

In hindsight, I would've adjusted the points to be a bit more pronounced in the center.

I'm hoping to add a clasp or button/loophole at the top to keep the shawl around my shoulders (hence the length of yarn left un-woven there).

But there it is, my first KAL and my first shawl.  I would be lying if I said I didn't do a little dance around the house with glee when it was finally laid out to dry.

My yarnie friends have already changed the way I knit.  I don't mean my method (still continental on the knits and difficult to describe on the purls).  The change is in my motivation.  

I felt more driven to complete this project than any other I've worked on before.  I picked it up as soon as I got home from work.  I did a lot of lunchtime knitting (as you can tell from all those shots on my desk at work).  I just felt that I had a group of people to be accountable to.  And it was exciting when I'd post a picture of progress and they'd respond with a chorus of attaboys and ohprettys.

Sort of a metaphor for me.  Life is just easier with friends.  People to bounce ideas off of, get advice from, encourage you through the doldrums and share in the successes.

So thank you, friends who are reading this.  You make my life better just by being you and being there.

xoxo

Mrs. Pi

*I have to specify "yarnie" because they aren't all knitters.  In fact, I myself am not just a knitter.  Crochet is about to take the main stage, so hold on tight!