2009/02/01



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!!!!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your scarf is so beautiful. You did a pefect knit! Thanks for getting me into this. Your design KAL sounds great,and will help me grow more. Name the time and directions.

oneknitwit
(cute picture)

Melissa ~ twoknitwit said...

ok ~ we make '2' for panels so far ~ I was thinking maybe a dk weight ~ not as wide as the calendar scarf ~ keep the k4 on each side so it doesn't curl .... other than that, I'm open to suggestions (how many stitches to cast on and how tall each panel should be?)

Anonymous said...

Oh I loved this pic'...how fun are you two together??? I'm guessing the tea was good, (high tea? or was it a Starbucks?) and the laughter was plentiful!

Your scarves are SUCH an inspiration!

I look forward to hearing more about the knit-along! I love the lace as well...but I am number challenged and will have my handy calculator near me to double check my numbers!!!

It was suggested to me to finish me scarf (REALLY?!) and maybe enter into our State Fair this year...I'm still thinking on that...

I think a design-along knit would be really cool...maybe we could "copy" the designer of this scarf's idea and post a section a day for a month before and get everyone ready for a BIG knit-along? It would be as long as as many knitter sign up for the design part of it...then the knit along part would be the "designers" and anyone else wanting to join in???

Just a thought...

I have way too much on my needles at the moment, and with everything else going on should be the LAST person to suggest knitting something else right now...but boy, that would be really fun!...:BIG GRIN:

Knitwits--you ROCK!

:)

Melissa ~ twoknitwit said...

great KAL ideas! Hopefully we can find enough people to make panels ~ maybe we could see how many people are interested and THEN pick the yarn weight so if there are LOTS of people interested we could use small, small yarn so we could have many panels or if there are just a few of us we will choose a heavier yarn so the panels will be big enough to make a scarf when we're finished.

so now we are 3 ~ lets see how many people post interest and if it's alot we can shut the design submittal part down at some point and if it's not alot of interest we'll pick a date down the road to call it good and see how many of us there are and what we should do.

does that make sense ~ don't want TOO many people (24 is a good # if we do lace again and I will definitely use a smaller yarn!!!) and if we get just a few we'll make it work with fewer & larger panels.

and the part about letting anybody else knit along with us is EXACTLY what I was thinking! how fun will this be!!

Melissa ~ twoknitwit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Melissa ~ twoknitwit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Melissa ~ twoknitwit said...

oh, and we didn't have tea yesterday but one, two, fourth and knitwittiest are getting together on Saturday for a run to another LYS to use our Christmas gift certificates (VERY EXCITED!!) and I'm sure there will a stop at Starbucks ;) since knitwittiest is a barista for them and we all LOVE coffee!!