How this project got its name: My bff and I are constantly texting each other. My phone doesn’t split up long messages, so there’s times where my messages to her arrive in the wrong order, or late, and she doesn’t realize it because the messages aren’t numbered. One of my two-part messages to her ended with, I am going to knit a while and the second message was on my cardi. The second message never arrived, so we started an entire conversation about what a WHILE was and how you go about knitting one! This yarn had just been purchased for knitting a shrug, so the shrug topic got pulled into the conversation. Since my projects often get odd names, and they are often from conversations with Liz, I told her then and there that my shrug was going to be named The While Shrug, and that was that!!
Feb. 23. 2012: My gauge swatch for a different project (which this yarn was originally planned for, but was unsuitable) worked out at the gauge needed for this pattern. I am doing it in stockinette rather than seed stitch as I like the look of that better in Homespun. I am doing size 1X according to the directions, since I “measured” my desired length from wrist-to-wrist, simply using a length of yarn! For my cast on of 39 sts, I measured the length needed as: 3 wraps around my arm for the 39 sts, plus 2 full arm lengths for seaming. After the cast-on, I was left with about the 2 arm lengths, so my guesstimate seems correct. I am making my life a little easier by not bothering with smaller needles for the cuff ribbing. This shrug is intended simply for sitting in the living room!!
Mar. 13, 2012: Well I’ve discovered that my measuring tape LIES!!! I’ve mainly been working on this when I can’t work on socks… Knit Night, travelling back and forth to the airport, things like that. I had measured it a few days ago and had placed a marker at the 40” mark, since I wasn’t quite a 50” yet, and I knew I had to get to 57” before doing the ribbing for the cuff. Yesterday evening, we drove into the city since Derek had a very early flight this morning. I took advantage of the time and got quite a bit done on the shrug… or so I thought! Measuring on my lap, in the truck, my work was 17” from the marker. When we got to the hotel, one of the first things I did was roll it all out to get a proper measurement. Derek and I checked it, and it was only 53”!!! I have no idea how it shrank that much, since I was knitting away for well over an hour of our drive in on it! I placed new markers at 50”, and hopefully the last bit will be done over the next few days or so!
April 15, 2012: Somehow I had neglected to note how many rows I had done for the ribbing. I have estimated it at 22 rows, and have done that for the second half. It is now cast off, and I will be seaming the “sleeves” before picking up the stitches for the body ribbing.