Smitten

The shawl is done, and I am in love!

I was so excited to be done with it that I knit the last couple of rows yesterday morning before work and then bound off during my lunch break. Almost as soon as I got home yesterday evening, I wove in the two ends and threw it in the tub to soak. Then, after Rainbow was asleep, I blocked it. By this morning, it was dry (and Rainbow even helped me to unpin it!). I couldn't be more thrilled with the results.

It came out bigger than I'd anticipated, but that's probably a good thing. I did end up having plenty of yarn to finish, though I won't say I wasn't nervous that I'd run just short. I kept the length of yarn that I wound off at the beginning when I discovered the nibbles, so I had that bit as a backup just in case.

Now that the knitting is done, the next step is converting all my hand-drawn charts into digital ones and writing up the pattern. That will take a bit of time, but it's something I can work on in bits and pieces. My goal was to get the shawl done in time to wear it to MDSW, and I met that goal with more than a week to spare.

Really, it didn't take me all that long to knit it -- I started it on April 7, but keep in mind that I was away for five days in there and I didn't work on it every day that I was home, so it was probably less than two weeks total of knitting time. And, call me crazy, but I kind of want to knit it again (perhaps in handspun?). For now, I'm just going to enjoy seeing it draped around Matilda until it's time to drape it around me.