It's The Final Countdown

If you are still working feverishly on knitted gifts for a certain holiday that is right around the corner, you had better pick up the pace!  Tomorrow is it my friend and then you are out of time.

Not that it would be the first year that I have wrapped up projects on the needles and finished them up after the holidays, but I think it is well past time I stopped doing that!

Actually, I am mostly smug because my Christmas knitting is complete.  I did add a cowl to my list of things to knit in the Indie Designers Gift Along, but it is really just to replace one that had been well worn, much loved and was decidedly thread bare in spots.

The last of the official gift knitting came off my needles and was blocked on Monday so it could be mailed by Tuesday to (hopefully) get to Washington State by today ready for festivities either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  (Just checked the tracking on it and it was delivered right on time today!)

There is a bit of a story behind this particular piece.

It all starts a long time ago when my ex-MIL sent me two balls of yarn for Christmas.  Just standard sized balls so a total of about 200 yards.  So I used it to knit as much of a scarf as I could and mailed it back to her with a note that said "People who do not knit but give me yarn get back finished objects. Thanks for the hours of enjoyment knitting this gave me..."

The next year I got a few more balls of yarn, this time enough to make a small shawlette.  Same deal, except I waited until Christmas to send it back and it became her Christmas present.

This has been going on for quite a while now, and the quantities of yarn I get sent get bigger and bigger.  So now we are up to full size shawls or sweater quantities.  She never gives me any guidance on what to make, and actually I am still not 100% convinced that she completely understands that for so many knitted things, once I have knit it the fun is over!  (Not always true, I am sitting here in my fingering weight Ruana feeling ever so pleased with the end result along with the process of designing and making it!)

Last year she sent me a DK yarn in a teally/bluish tone that I was having a terrible time coming up with the perfect project for.  It has a significant amount of alpaca, and though your mileage may vary, I find for clothing alpaca has this tendency to grow with wearing!  Sometime a lot!  (Not to mention she got a cardigan last year!)

In my usual fashion, I picked the yarn up a few times over the course of the year and then...well the deadline started looming!


Enter a pattern from the Indie Gift Along, from a designer I had not purchased patterns from before...Travessia by Clarice Gomes you can get your own copy by following the link.  My yarn wasn't exactly what the pattern called for, but having had a test knitter for one of my shawls use the same type in place of a fingering weight yarn, I knew I was pretty safe casting on.





This pattern was so much fun to knit, that in all it took me 12 days to knit the shawl (and a few other things that are secret!) from start to finished blocking shots.




Not too shabby if I do say so myself!



















TDQ was a gracious stand in model for the recipient, even if the purple hair doesn't quite go with the shawl.  :)

What do you think?















I have started a cowl and have one more pattern in my queue for the Gift Along...fingerless mitts for me!  Maybe I will share pictures of them tomorrow.

If I don't...well I wish you the Happiest, Merriest, Most Wonderful Christmas ever!

~M

Oh, PS, if you are not signed up for the Knotions Preview Newsletter go here and do that....I have a surprise for you coming up!