Screw your courage to the steeking place

Persian Tiles shawl for Grandma

Once the edging was all done, the pattern instructions told me to trim the steeks to a two-stitch width and then sew it down.

A two-stitch width, eh?

Well, I thought about that...and looked at the cut steek, with all the little unravelling-prone fringey bits...and thought...and looked...and thought...

And I didn't think I could do it.

What I preferred to do was to keep my bigger four-stitch width and sew that down. Very, very, securely. And I was still concerned about the long-term prospects for this thing not coming apart.

What actually happened was that by the time I got to actually sewing down the steek, it had unravelled to a two-stitch width all by itself. It was pretty hairy going. The bad news is that my sewing on the first half of the steek sucked rocks. The good news is that it improved vastly on the second half. I may take pictures tomorrow of the steek sewing - but given how embarrassed I am about the sewing on the first half, maybe not.

The point is that here I am at two o'clock in the morning with a completed, washed and blocked shawl:


So, my stress must be gone, eh? Heck, no! Why? Because the shawl only has nine hours to dry. Given that my BIL's Stornaway sweater was made out of the same yarn and it took a few days to dry, I am pretty worried right now. The only two things I have going for me are that a) the shawl, unlike the sweater, does not have cables, which, due to the twists, probably added to the sweater drying time; and b) the shawl lying flat on towels will be just one layer of fabric, as opposed to the sweater, which was two (front and back), and this should again speed up the drying time. Oh, also I squeezed out the water way more thoroughly on the shawl. But I may still be screwed. I suppose I could always pop it in the dryer on fluff, but that would totally defeat the purpose of blocking, so...

Yeah, it's all tension and suspense here at Insanity Headquarters. Sigh.

Self-patterning socks for DH

I finally took a picture:

It's been very hard today, so close to completion of a large panic project, not to think ahead too much to my next project. Oh, hell, who are we kindding. Projects. Now, admittedly, the next thing coming up is also deadline-driven since it's an anniversary present. But I've given myself five whole weeks to do it, and it's just mittens. There's no reason I can't take a day (or two) every week for the next five weeks to 'goof off' and work on something else, something frivolous, something...not on The Schedule. (If this last sentence made you hear the Crack Of Knitting Doom, please be so kind as to keep it to yourself?) And frankly, I'm getting giddy just thinking about it. What'll it be? My new Lotus Blossom shawl? DD's Twizzle cardigan? Or maybe I could give a faint nod to The Schedule and start DH's Christmas sweater way ahead of time, just so I can start feeling and seeing the gorgeous green lambswool flowing through my fingers? Hee hee hee! WHO KNOWS?!? (See? Giddy.)

But first of all, before any of it...I shall sleep.