The Sharon Show (all 7 feet of it)

[terriko]

This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.

The Sharon Show was a mystery knit a long for a very long square shawl, easy knitting combined with some light hearted cat themed entertainment. I don’t actually love the long wraps, but I’d never tried a Casapinka pattern and I liked the pitch of $7 worth of entertainment.

Part of clue 1 with my original choice of colours.

It didn’t start off so well: my needles were too rough and the yarn colours weren’t thrilling me. The needles are the short ones from Knit Picks, which I love, but the finish on them wears off and the layered wood sometimes wears down at different rates. I temporarily fixed them with nail polish (the theory works but I think I’d like to sand and refinish them properly), and in the end I invested in some new tips from Chiaogoo. I love the Chiaogoo metal-core cables, and had recently learned that they made a shorter bamboo tip (4inch to knitpicks 3ish). It’s a bit pointy. I can knit with it but I have a toddler who launches himself into my lap, so the blunter can be a serious safety improvement! Still, these worked out well and hopefully I won’t have to replace/refinish them every few years.

Swatching new colours in place.

My colour B just didn’t look good to me: the contrast was fine but I didn’t like it, and as a result I was finding any excuse not to knit it. So out it went, and I was a clue and a half behind.

Clue 1

After that it went a lot better, though!

Clue 2

Not all of the drinks appealed to me (when your body hates both alcohol and fizzy drinks, sometimes by the time you’re done substituting you don’t have much of a mix) but I really enjoyed The Floofy Tail enough to make a few variations.

The Floofy Tail cocktail

What I really enjoyed later in the game was going off script, sometimes with the help of pictures people had posted in the forums.

This shawl and I made it though the wildfires, several books, and several other projects as I needed a break from it.

I started getting worried about how long it was getting and started shortening things up and wondering if I should skip the last clue. But I’d come so far! I took out some repeats and kept going.

Honestly, it was too much shawl for me, and though I enjoyed it, I was seriously wondering why I hadn’t committed that time to a much more useful sweater. Especially when it blocked out to 7 feet long and I thought “oh no, I’m never going to be able to wear this.”

But then I put it on and it fits perfectly!

And not *just* on my kids toy car. 😉

I’m going to need a selfie stick to show you those ends, though. 😉

Overall: very fun and what I was hoping for from the pattern. But I’m also very glad to be done, and next time a pattern tells me it’s going to be 5 feet long in the “small” size, I’m going to seriously consider doing a sweater instead!