It is finished!

I finished the scarf for Sbodd last night! Gaze in wonder!



And here is the original scarf I knitted, which...actually looks a lot less impressive next to Sbodd's, but it's still pretty!




Eee hee!!!

It's a little obvious on both scarfs which end I started from and which end I ended at - the start end is in both cases messier and wider than the finish end. But that's okay! I will get better!

I started casting on for the matching hat to Sbodd's scarf, so that is the next project. I still have my shawl on the needles as well. I should have thought to photograph that while I had the camera out because it is priiiiitty, but I didn't. Ah well!

Update: Please ignore my messy house in the background. You know I am proud of these things if I am posting these pictures with all that crap in them. :oP

User Error

I have finally made a few unfixable mistakes in my knitting. I'm surprised it took me this long. :oP And really, none of them were unfixable per se. I just would have had to take out a lot of work to fix them. I picked up an extra stitch on the shawl I am knitting with the Paton yarn, and it is so slick that anytime I take a stitch off the needle it imediately slips out of the loop below it and I end up spending a lot of time picking up those dropped loops. The idea of pulling out an entire row was terrifying, so I just knitted two of the stitches together and went on from there.

On the scarf I am knitting for Sbodd, it looks like I mixed up my pattern, so there are two sections of stockinette-type stitches in the middle of the pattern, which is more of a garter stitch look. I didn't discover this until I was several inches past it, and though I offered to take it out and fix it, Sbodd assured me it wasn't a big deal. Whether he did this because he actually doesn't mind or because he didn't want to be the one responsible for making me rip out several inches of stitches (which would not at all have improved my mood), I do not venture to guess.

Anyway, I'm still enjoying doing it, though I do get some pain in my right hand that is kind of limiting. It's not down in my wrist, though, where I used to have problems, but up in my knuckles and fingers, so I hope it's just tired muscles unaccustomed to these particular motions, and that it will go away in time as my hand gets a little stronger.

I can definately see the appeal of circular needles. I am working on 13" straights for the shawl, and the ends of the needles get caught on my sleeves, or anything else that happens to be nearby, including the line of yarn feeding from my ball. I also find that I tend to have to lift the needles higher to keep this from happening, which puts more weight and strain on my wrists and hands. It will be interesting to see how I feel about working with circulars when I start the gloves I want to make. J. got me the circulars for that for my birthday, and I might just have to test them out and see what the ups and downs of working with them are.