Fina-fucking-ly.
It's supposed to be about the journey, right, and not the destination?
Yeah, not this time.
I can't even say "Oh! I'm so happy that it is done!"
Because it's not happiness I feel.
It's victory and vengeance and relief.
How did a project that started out so beautifully turn into such an unending nightmare?
It started off wonderfully.
Seemed like a straightforward project. Nothing in the pattern notes about not being able to enlarge it. So, I didn't look too closely at the other user's projects. (Mistake the First).
I had a wee bit of a scare doing the last repeat, but had enough yarn and happily started the edging. I had done what I thought were 7 repeats. (Mistake the Second).
The edging wasn't lining up because apparently, you can only do exactly 4 body repeats for it to work. I decided to look at the other projects at that point to try and figure out how to salvage this thing. The only solution I had found was to do an 8th repeat... But I was out of yarn, except for what i had for the edging. So, I decided to forge ahead and figure out my own edging.
Do I really need to point out that that was Mistake the Third?
I went up to Harps and Thistles to find a suitable color to use for the 8th repeat.
I burned through it and carefully counted my stitches, using the notes from one of the other projects.
And discovered to my horror that I still needed to do another repeat.
I almost lost yarn chicken that time, but I got through and started the edging.
At this point, this thing was a giant nightmare. Literally giant.
And I had to buy yet another damn skein of yarn.
This conversation I had with Mikayla pretty much sums up how I felt about the whole damn thing at this point.
Yarn purchased, I forged ahead.
I wasn't overly happy with how the last two rows of the pattern, so I made a simple change. Take note of this and remember it for later.
As soon as I finished, I decided to count the number of stitches on my needles.
I nearly shat myself when I came up with 787. But whatever! It was done except the bind off!
Two and a half hours later, it was done. And it was beautiful and huge and I loved it.
That's blocking on our queen size bed.
After wrangling that, I decided that I needed a nice relaxing shower, seeing as I was going to have 16 bloody ends to weave in later.
You know how you start really thinking about things when you have a chance to take a breather?
Yeah.
In my shower, feeling perfectly content with the world, I realized, much to my horror, that it was entirely my fault that I had nearly 200 more stitches than I should have.
How does one fuck up that bad?
Well, I had added some increases in every repeat when I changed the last two rows... Annnnnddddd promptly forgot to balance them out with decreases.
One last stab in the heart, eh, Orchid Thief?
But as soon as I settled her on my shoulders, I fell in love.
So here she is, in all her glory.
She's everything I could have hoped for.
And while she's not the widest shawl I've ever made.
She is the longest.
And, despite the struggle to get here, I am thrilled with Orchid Thief and so happy to add her to my collection.
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