AuburnChick's Adventures

Although it has seemed as though I’ve been sleeping the summer away, I have, in fact, kept myself busy…reading…watching many, many episodes of Alias, AND knitting.

The Harry Potter group I’m involved with on Ravelry encourages “students” to propose and complete OWLs.  An OWL is a larger project that requires more time to complete.  It’s a fairly big deal to propose and must meet the specifics of the prompt a student selects.

I set my sights on a Runes project…one that required multiple charts.  Enter in my Vernal Equinox Shawl, a free pattern you can find on Ravelry.

Here’s my swatch…

I’d purchased Cascade Alpaca yarn for it during Spring Break.

I cast on May 25th.

The project grew…and grew…and grew.

For the first time in my knitting career, I used lifelines.  A lifeline is what you create when you run thin yarn or thick thread through a row of stitches.  I used quilt thread and ran it through the live stitches on my needle after I finished each chart.  Thank heavens because there were a few times when I had to tink back to fix mistakes, and because the yarn was so thin, stitches dropped.  Fortunately, the lifeline caught the dropped stitches, so I could put them back on my needle easily.

I finally got to the bind off row and got stuck.  I wanted to do the crochet bind off but wasn’t sure how, despite visiting YouTube.  I contacted a sweet friend, and she invited me to her home on her day off.  We spent a wonderful hour and a half together while she helped me figure out the instructions.  Note to anyone doing this pattern…TRUST THE INSTRUCTIONS.  They work out in the end.  In other words, don’t overthink them (ahem).

I began the cast off the next day.  It took me over NINE HOURS to finish.

I kid you not.

I had 652 stitches on the needle and was freaked out that the stitch count wouldn’t come out right.

I had created a chart to keep track of what I was supposed to do…

Fortunately (and surprisingly), I reached the end right on track with the pattern.  God had mercy on me!!!  😀

It took me a couple of hours to block it (pin it out).  I ran my blocking wires through the decrease stitches, making points in the process.

Here’s what it looked like when I took it off of the wires…

Here are close-ups…

On Sunday, the Mr. acquiesced to my request for photography assistance.  It was simply too humid to be running back and forth between the tripod and self-timer on the camera, which is how I usually take my knitting pictures.

I’m quite proud of this shawl, so please forgive my crazy number of pictures.

I’m not sure if I’m going to propose an OWL for the Fall term.  The beginning of school is crazy-busy, and I don’t want to stress myself needlessly.  However, I do like the challenge of a larger project.  I also think that an OWL would help me take time out for myself…something I feel guilty about doing because of my teaching responsibilities.  Guess I’ll just have to pray about it.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed the photos!  Thanks for allowing me to brag a bit.  😀

Filed under: Knitting | Tagged: HPKCHC, Knitting, ravelry, Vernal Equinox Shawl |