Well, the end has come to a delightful experience! I've sure enjoyed knitting along with everyone ~ it's so much more enjoyable than knitting alone! Not that I don't enjoy knitting alone, but I think you can get my point.

It's been fun to see my closest knitting buddies grow. Kelli, it's awesome to have you online more & chatting with you. The sheer volume of things you have 'on the needles' at any given time is amazing to me and that you still managed to be the first to finish, although not totally surprising, gave me the extra push I needed to 'catch-up' with the master and finish! And take my word for it, ladies, Annette has become a much better knitter thru this experience! I was surprised when she said she was interested in doing such a large project and she is doing a SUPER job! It's been fun getting to know the rest of you also, especially Twisted and Tone, and I hope to see some progress pics from the other gals that joined our little KAL.

So, the things I take away from this experience are as follows ~

1. I like to blog. I am so not a chatterbox but I have always liked to write and I've enjoyed having an outlet for that.
2. The feeling that I can make anything has been reinforced ~ what a huge, challenging project! I've only been knitting for 2 years and every once in a while it strikes me how far I've come in such a short time.
3. I love to do lace ~ I'm a math lover and it was fun to figure out each panel before hand as far as the stitch counts and where there were increase rows and decrease rows. And if anyone is interested, if you do all 24 panels as written, there are 69,277 stitches in this piece of artwork! Mine, on the other hand, has 69,625 since I added 4 rows to one of the panels! Almost 70 thousand stitches ~ if you didn't have a sense of accomplishment before, hopefully that little fact does it for you ;)
4. A little creativity bug has been sparked in me ~ I have an idea for a KAL for later in the year sometime, kind of based on this pattern. I was thinking that we could have a DAL/KAL (design along/knit along) ~ everyone could design their own panel based on a favorite pattern or lace or cable. We could choose a yarn weight and panel dimension before hand and give everyone a couple months to write up a pattern for 1 panel and make a sample to make sure that it worked and when we had enough people with finished designs, we could blog along and make a scarf with everyone's pieces included. I can iron out all the details later if anyone has any interest and input!
5. The most comfortable place for me to knit is in my car!! I've been having neck & back troubles and headaches the last couple weeks and it was all because of the chair I've been sitting in. I knit in my car for an hour this week ~ heated leather seat, full lumbar support and my feet completely flat on the floorboard and MAN, I could have sat there for HOURS!! So if you come looking for me and I'm nowhere to be found, check the driveway!

So, the needles are out of the scarf and awaiting another project. Happy knitting to everyone and I'll be checking in to see posts from those of you that haven't finished so please keep posting!!

Oh, and if you're curious, the above photo is OneKnitWit and I at one of my favorite LYS' ~ Wild Fibers in Mt Vernon. We hit the pre-Superbowl Sale with ThirdKnitWit this morning and took advantage of the opportunity to have a photo taken with our Calendar Scarves. In a very comical moment, Sarah, the owner who I have never officially met, walked up in front of me, lifted an end of my scarf that was still around my neck and said, "So, is this the tarp?". Very funny!!!!