So. Cast on for a special blankie for my 2nd child in July of 2009. Spent the last 3 years slogging through ever-increasing rows that started with 14 sts and ended at 728 sts per row. Just finished the last, 149th row. About to work row 150- the bind off. And ran out of yarn.
Yannick was away this weekend, and today was too rainy and lazy for me to want to take the boys anywhere after their morning swimming lessons.
Who wants cookies??
I made a double batch of basic vanilla cookies, and divided it in 4 to flavor it up. The boys helped me cut out the shapes…
…and after they had cooled, and the boys played, I iced them. There’s chocolate/mint cookies with mint icing, almond cookies with royal icing, chocolate/coconut that were tapped onto a plate of coconut while the icing was still wet, and peanut butter (un-iced).
Once the boys came down from their sugar rush and went to bed, I knit for a bit. It takes so long per row that I feel like I’m not getting anywhere, but I’ve now done 14 rows since restarting to work on it, and I remind myself that once I finish this blue section I’ve only got 1 red section to do. (I’m trying to ignore the fact that those rows will be 616-728 stitches each).
I’m sitting in bed, watching the Muppets’ Just For Laughs gala from this past summer, and knitting on Spidey. I was so optimistic about finishing it last weekend that I wound up the 2 remaining balls each of blue and red and brought everything along to TO, including my sock in progress and a spare ball of sock yarn. You know- to have something for the trip home.
The only thing I didn’t count on was the fact that each row takes almost an hour to knit, and that they keep getting longer! I managed to knit 8(!) rows on the way down and during a long car ride to my cousin’s shower. That’s 8 rows with 504-532 rows each.
I got 0 rows knit on the way home because I was so extremely car sick that I spent the entire 7 hour drive staring at the clouds in the sky. It was the only thing that didn’t make me nauseous.
But now I’m determined to finish for Henri’s birthday. Even if, as Maaike has suggested, I only knit 1 row per day. Eventually it will have to get done.
A 5 hour car ride to Toronto (for my cousin’s baby shower- gift sweater pics to come) means I needed car knitting. Starting something new is tempting, but so is clearing the needles of old projects. Henri was supposed to get this blanket for his 1st birthday…hopefully he’ll now be able to get it for his 4th!
Well.
I’m in better shape than I’d thought. But…
Tonight before bed I decided to do a quick ‘n dirty wet block to really see where things stood with my Jeanie. I need to get to 66″ and stretching it out on my lap wasn’t helping me see the true length.
I even dropped the column stitches that don’t get dropped until the very end, (doing a yo over them so I can keep going), and pinned the whole thing out.
The good news? At 114 rows in, I’m at 22″. That means exactly 1/3 of the way done.
The bad news? To get 228 rows (the remaining 2/3) done by Sunday night (the closing ceremonies) means I need to knit 6.75 hours per day.
Um. Yeah.
And that doesn’t take into account the upper or lower border, or the slightly longer cable rows that occur every 8 or so.
*sigh*
I WILL finish. But I won’t medal. I’ll still be knitting when all the other competitors have packed up and gone home.
*sigh*
I really should have thought this through. 66″ in sock yarn is a loooong way to go, and my knitting mojo has been off at night, ‘cus my allergy pills wear off and all I want to do is hide in bed. I don’t want to be a quitter, but it’s hard to keep pushing when I feel like there’s no point, since I can’t possibly win. Though if Paula Findlay kept going…
jeloca.com 