I did it! I did it!!

Oh I can hardly believe it myself, but the Frost Flowers Stole is finished, blocked and dried! What a marathon weekend. I had about 10 rows to go on Saturday and really wanted to get it done this weekend but I wasn't entirely sure that was going to happen considering I had rehearsal Saturday night and a birthday party to attend Sunday evening. But after walking Tink I settled down Saturday at about 12:30 and started knitting. With a couple breaks to run upstairs to change out some laundry I knit until I had 20 minutes to get to rehearsal - 5:40. At that point I had four more rows of knitting to do and I SO wanted to finish it but I had to leave. So I quickly nuked some "Veggie Bites", threw them into a napkin, grabbed a bottle of water and my microphone and ran out the door. I was 10 minutes late to Doug's but .. hmmm .. I didn't see any of the other vehicles. I got to the door and there was Doug with a friend getting ready to walk out the door. He was surprised to see me -- no, no rehearsal because the bass player went to Boston. I didn't remember him saying he was going to Boston but that doesn't mean he didn't say it. So ... back home I went and plunked my butt back down in my comfy chair and tackled the last four rows. At a little after 10 that night I had the knitting finished. I knit the extra couple stitches to get it centered on the needles and put it down. Oh ... no I wanted to start grafting it right then but I thought better of it.

Sunday I had lots of errands and chores so I wasn't able to put half the stitches (238 to be exact) on a spare needle until about 2:30. I started Kitchner-ing the 476 stitches together but after an hour we had to leave for the party. We got back around 7 and I kept at it until I finished around 9:30. [I know ... I should have kept track of exactly how many hours this thing sucked from my life!] After weaving in the two ends I popped it into the washing machine (gotta love that hand wash cycle) and blocked it before falling into bed. And this morning it was all dried and looking fabulous. The seam is all but invisible. I was astonished at myself - I made it to the end without any extra stitches. I must say that I am very doubtful that I will ever again tackle such a project as "real" lace knitting. I much prefer the easier version with a rest row. This pattern on each and every row is really hard. I am pleased with the end product but I don't believe anyone who is not a knitter would know the difference.

I used my camera rather than my iPhone to take this photo this morning so I have it here and can finally post pictures of the coat I made for my sister in November. Unfortunately the picture doesn't show all of the nice lace and fully fashioned increases and decreases. It turned out very well and she loves it, although I think she might have preferred something more fitted. This is very versatile though and I think she'll wear it a lot.

Even though it's not raining I did drive in today, partly because I wanted to bring in my food and running clothes, camera, etc. Scatterbrained me, I realized half way to work that I had forgotten my running clothes. arghghghg I had such a great run on Friday I was really looking forward to today when I was going to run an hour. I guess that'll just have to wait until tomorrow and today, if it's not raining (because I forgot my umbrella as well) I will walk up to the LYS and look at yarn for the Great Gatsby Dress. Any excuse.