Knitting Olympics... Done!!

Have you ever finished a project and think to yourself.... 'that was much easier and took less time than I ever imagined'? I did. My Knitting Olympics project took me 4 days. That's right, I said 4 days. I figured since it has taken me an average of 3 months to do a shawl twice this size I'd be pushing it to get it done in the 16 days. The darn thing moved along so fast I was feeling like Chad Hedrik or Apolo Ohno speeding right along, minus the skates of course. Here it is in all it's blocking glory:















and another showing (well sort of) the lace detail:















It took me two days to finally get around to blocking it. I think I was too stunned that it took such a short time and I was still trying to figure out what happened! Did I mention that it only took me 4 days? And that was with two munchkins wanting my attention. This is knit out of a Schaefer yarn called Anne in a beautiful handpainted green. The pictures simply don't do the colors justice. It's a 60% superwash merino, 25% mohair and 15% nylon that feels so soft. I had originally bought this yarn (ok, so it reached out and grabbed me at Marylands Sheep and Wool Festival) to make a pair of socks out of but couldn't find the perfect pattern. Tell me you've never done that before. This particular shawl called for 548 yds of a fingering weight yarn and I had one 560 yd hank of Anne. How much more perfect can you get? Amazingly enough I ended up with enough yarn for 3 extra repeats of the main pattern and still probably could have done one more when all was done. Still, I'm very pleased with the end result.

My FLAK is caught up through part 5 so that has been set aside for now. I finished that after the shawl was done, but haven't managed to get pictures yet.

The first clue for the Mystery Shawl along was released yesterday so that's what's being worked on right now. I'm enjoying blindly following a pattern without seeing a picture of it first and watching the patterns take shape in the yarn. I'm not sure how much more lace I'll knit once this shawl is done. I've noticed my fingers get cramped working with the thinner yarns but I do so love the end results.

By the way... I'm freezing my tootsies off right now! The temp is down into the teens. Luckily the kids and I all have warm pajamas and blankets to sleep in.