June Bugged

June's shawl is done.

...

This is the part where I'm supposed to wax all poetic about how amazing it is and how wonderful it was to knit and how I can't wait to wear it, right?

...

Yeah, that ain't happening this month.

I did finish the knitting portion of my Gryffindor bag early on, but I'm not entirely happy with it.

As for shawls, I actually attempted to start or finish three different ones this month.

I thought VooDoo would be perfect because I wanted to wear it for Ren Faire next month.

But I didn't really want to do something beaded.

So I thought Mystic Star would be a good one to finish.

But I didn't think I'd actually be able to finish it in time.

So I picked up Gilded Age again.

But this one was boring AF to work on.

So, frustrated beyond belief and freaking out since it was already the middle of June, I grabbed a couple of skeins of Malabrigo Rios worsted weight and started the first free pattern I could find.

Which happened to be Kelp.

I cast on, muddled my way through the (rather unhelpful, in my opinion) directions, and just kept knitting.

I knit on the way to Origins.

I knit at Origins.

I knit near. I knit far.

I even knit at a bar.

I finally finished the body...

And ended up having to improvise the damn ruffled edge.

Then I did a picot bind-off that took me, not even kidding, a whole damn day.

AND I ALMOST RAN OUT OF YARN!

But finally...

It was done.

Blocking was relatively easy. I just kind of pulled the garter stitch points down and let the edge just kind of fall where it wanted to.

But somehow, someway, this shawl didn't "Ashtan"

Yep.

It's not big. It's not excessive. There wasn't any mid-project crisis. I didn't really change the pattern.

It is a pretty shawl, don't get me wrong.

I love the ruffled edge.

And I love the color variation in this.

But...

This shawl is clearly not for me.

It needs to be given to someone who will love and appreciate it.

I needed to make it, and it fulfilled that purpose.

But it's also taught me that I'm not going to love every single thing I make. Some stuff I'm going to be able to let go of freely and clearly, without the slightest hint of remorse.

And that's perfectly okay.

So thanks, Kelp, for teaching me so much. I hope you make your recipient much happier than what we could have had.

As for me, I think after the torture...

... it's time for a treat.