Finishing projects

Unlike the majority of knitters, I don't really mind finishing projects. Because I get to do it so often for customers, I guess I've had more experience than the average knitter and know what to worry about and what to ignore as it will probably fix itself in the blocking.

Those of you who saw me at the Sheep Dog trials in August will be pleased to see that I finished the sideways jacket that was so difficult to explain when I was only 7" up the first sleeve. I love the colours and how it drapes.

When we were on holidays in the maritimes, there was a lot of knitting time in the car. I got to start a sweater in alpaca for my husband for Christmas (ha, ha...considering I've also had requests for an afghan and a felted yoga mat bag. Can you imagine how big that sucker is going to have to be before I felt it? That's a lot of knitting.) Anyway, the problem with knitting with alpaca in a small car with 3 other people is that there is a lot of "fluff" that flies around. No one commented, but I did feel that I had to wipe down the dash every 20 minutes or so. To keep the "fluff" under control some of the time, I had also brought my Feather and Fan scarf that I was making of Topsy Farms premium lace weight wool which I had dyed with raspberry lemonade Kool-Aid. (Again, who knew that raspberries were such a lovely aqua colour.) I believe that there was a picture of it on an earlier posting of this blog when it was only about 2" long. Well, here it is. Completed, cast off, washed and blocked. I still love the softly mottled aqua colour.

It must be a time of the year when we are encouraged to finish up some of the UFO's (unfinished objects) before we get into some serious holiday gift knitting. Just this morning, Jane who works at the store came in wearing her latest creation: A jacket of Manos Del Uruguay, sporting our new Incomparable Buttons. It's stunning.

But yesterday, I saw the finished version of the mother of all knitting projects (no pun intended...read on). An unbelievable dedicated mother of the bride took on the knitting of her daughter's wedding dress. (By the way, the wedding is taking place today - congrats to the happy couple). The body of the dress was a lovely blending of lace weight mohair and a lovely silky looking DK yarn. The skirt was knit entirely in Stocking stitch of the lace weight mohair by itself on quite large needles. I was concerned that it might be a bit see-through with the open texture. I needn't have worried. When the mother brought in the finished dress we saw that there was so much ruffling in the skirt that it layered beautifully and apparently flows like a train.

To achieve this ruffling, the pattern called for many regular increases. The final increase round brought the total number of stitches to 10,000 per round. I kid you not! I was interested about the time requirement to knit 10,000 stitches so when I got home, I tested myself at a sensible rhythm and could sustain about 25sts per minute, considering moving stitches along, pulling yarn etc. At that rate, a single round would take approximately 6 hours and 40 minutes. Now is that not a story of unbelievable maternal love and dedication.

By the way, I hear that the dress fits beautifully and is loved. We've been promised a picture and hope to share it with you.