8/24/12- Cast on!

8/25/12- RE-Cast on because I discovered I twisted my set up row. DERP! I bought the kit from Kate so am using the exact yarn specified on her pattern page, Donegal Soft. It is soft, no doubt but it’s a bit rougher spun than what I’m used to so it’s slower going than the smooth sock yarns I generally work with but I still love it. A lot. The colors are deep & rich. The pattern is amazing. It looks far more complicated than it actually is to knit. I’m still skeert of the steeking part that is to come but I am looking forward to the adventure of learning something new so I will keep going and hope for the best.

9/18/12- after a week off because we were out of town, I finished the colorwork portion of the knitting. Now I have to finish weaving in ends (GADS there are a lot of ends) and brace myself for the scary part. Steeking. I think I’m going to knit a single repeat sized mini to practice with before I take a scissors to the real thing!

9/22/12- It’s time… I’m about to take a scissors to it. And I’m skeert! But my sample piece is holding up. I know I can do this. I just question my sanity in doing it anyway.

9/24/12- We nearly came to blows, this project and I. The steeking I survived, but the steek sandwich was a nightmare. Not the process, that I could deal with, but trying to wrestle 544 stitches for the wrong side of the sandwich while an equal number of stitches were held on the same length needle on the front side. After nearly 2 hours, I’d barely finished half a row. It wasn’t oging to happen. So I transferred the resting stitches to waste yarn and knit the 2nd half of the sammich. Discovered I could pick the stitches up from the waste yarn with relative ease so I didn’t bother feeding the resting stitches back to an actual needle in order to join the two sammich halves together. And I knit me the i-cord binding. General assessment is it’s a pain in the arse, but worth the effort. Unfortunately I finished the binding while watching the worst NFL game ending ever which totally sucked the joy out of finishing the knitting. So I’m going to walk away for a couple of days and let myself recover before I weave in the last of the ends and block it. Because once I’ve regained my perspective, this will be back in my knitting hall of fame.

10/1/12- Ends woven, waste yarn removed, butt print of approval applied, it’s DONE! I need to do a little work at blocking in order to square things up but I am 100% good with calling this a finished object! And I LOVE IT!