When the going gets tough...

… I start thinking I should’ve just knitted a blooming hat. Yes, it’s the Ravellenic games, folks, and I stupidly decided I’d knit a Kate/Wildhoney shawl – named Kate after Kate Middleton, Prince William’s missus, and Wildhoney after the Ravelry lady who brought the pattern to us (I think she’s Russian?). It’s a simple enough design – a shawl made from shortrowing across the entire bed, to make a pie-wedge shape, and then a short-rowed ruffle knitted onto it, all the way around.

The shawl itself was easy enough once I’d decided what yarn to use – I bought a cone of beautiful hyacinth blue 2ply lambswool ages ago from Uppinghams (it was after the first jumper-shrinking debacle, when I made the perpetrator take me there to buy replacement yarn for a new one, in fact). I never had anything in mind at the time, the colour was just so lovely it kind of fell into my arms. You know the sort.

Anyroad, I’ve been at this shawl since Sunday. Let us not speak of Saturday, when I spent over an hour repairing damaged needles and trying to get cast on (and then giving up and having a sulk in the garden with a nice can of pear cider). The shawl itself was a fairly quick knit once I realized that casting on with waste yarn and just going straight into it would work a lot better. But the ruffle? Oh kerfuffle!

It’s 40sts, 20 rows straight, then shortrowing every 4 sts in and out again. No big deal. But it seems to be taking forever. It’s rapidly making me think of some kind of knitting black hole, there just seems to be no end to it. I knitted nearly a thousand straight rows on Monday night – this doesn’t include the short rows, which add another 40 rows every 20 rows – and quite a bit more on Wednesday (I skipped knitting club partly because I needed to work on this, and partly because I’ve been a bit ill lately). I had to stop on Wednesday as I was getting shoulder pain in my left (think my chair was a tad too low). Managed a bit more last night before the gym – the last (radial) side is in sight! Finally!

It hasn’t helped that I had Passap night on Tuesday, which I did not wish to cancel (it was moved forward a week as it was, because of my schedule) – but at least I got a chance to test-knit that pintuck swatch in the 2/30s which is a LOT nicer than the black ones I did. I can’t knit tonight – I managed to get tickets for the women’s footie, and I daren’t even take my handknitting in, in case they wrestle it off me. Knitting’s not on the security no-no list, but sharp pointy objects are. As I’ve slowed down to a crawl on the second sock (and had to reknit parts of the heel because I messed the decreases up) I’m not about to surrender the sock to anyone, regardless of how much magenta, purple or khaki they’re wearing.

Everyone’s posting such wonderful things to our Ravellenic FO thread and I feel as if as a mod I’m letting the side down somewhat. I have to keep telling myself, I work full-time, this is challenging to me (in terms of getting it finished in time) and although I could have gone for quantity, it wouldn’t have been a big effort on my part.

So – it’s down to the wire this weekend, I guess. Got to ferry himself and his bro to various garages tomorrow, MOTs and repairs due, but hopefully after that I’m free! Free! FREE I tell you – to get down the last side, graft it, weave in the ends, wash and steam. Hmm….

It might still be a photo finish….