Sometimes I surprise myself

Handspun Solar Flare, a photo by Project Pictures on Flickr.

That's not meant to be a boasting statement (although I suppose you could read it that way). I really was surprised!

I was surprised I could manage to churn out an entire shawl in four days, even if it was my own pattern. But that's what happened.

On June 8th, I suddenly conceived a burning desire to enter Solar Flare in the Black Sheep Gathering. I realized there was one major problem with this. The version I had already knit was done in millspun yarn (but for a few rows at the end). BSG requires that all entries be made of handspun yarn. And they needed to be in by June 12th. Oh, no!

But I couldn't let a little thing like that stop me, could I? Of course not. I set to knitting. And knitting. And knitting. Every spare moment. Fifteen minutes here, fifteen minutes there. Knitting at naptime. Knitting while waiting to stop sweating at the gym. I'd figure two rows at every opportunity and I'd be golden (maybe). I gave up my evening TV (because it was too distracting to knit as fast as I needed). I got up early and worked before the kids were up. I knit at the park, in the driveway, in the bedroom, on the couch, in the kitchen, but did stop just short of taking the shawl with me quite everywhere. I became more stressed as I slowly ran out of yarn, remeasured my backup skeinlet and realized that I'd been off in calculating yardage and only had 430 yards to work with instead of my estimated 500. I knit even faster to try and not-run-out-of-yarn-too-soon. (Do you ever do that? I swear I can't stop myself even though I know it doesn't really work.) I nixed the last row of increases and reworked the final charts to compensate (which sounds much more complicated than it really is).

And I got it done! I cast off, soaked and blocked on the 11th and then sat down to carefully read how to get all the entry information properly placed and figure out where it needed to go.

And then I saw it. Mail-in entries were required by the 12th. Entries could be personally delivered up until the morning of the 24th.

THUD.

At least it's done!

P.S. Cris (from Into the Whirled) and I are running a KAL for this shawl starting on June 21st, to celebrate the longest day of the year! If you'd like to join in, check out the Ravelry thread here.