My Entire Dining Room Floor

Last night I was determined to finish AudioGirl's birthday shawl*. I'm leaving for a conference on Thursday and I couldn't face the potential of coming home and it not being completed. Armed with several episodes of Sawbones**  I undertook the final sprint of brioche. It was about three hours between the remaining rows and the bind-off.

Yes, I needed the panoramic setting on my camera and yes, it really is that big. Each of my blocking mats is 12" square, so as  you're counting along at home you'll notice that it's a full 10' across the top.  The width at the big end is right at about 3 feet. My industrious supplier of cat fur is everyone's favorite small gray tabby -- as per usual. 

Project details.  This is the Raining Revolution Wrap . I used the Crow Moon pack of Socks That Rock Lightweight from Blue Moon Fibers Arts and an additional skein of Cascade Heritage 150, for a total of 1700 yards. There were a few mods -- the pattern calls for six colors; I used four. You're supposed to change colors every eyelet row; I changed when I had 30-35 grams left of whatever skein I was on, blending in the next color.  You're supposed to do two-color brioche that then blends in the early colors; I did not -- as you can see there's 5" of the pale yellow skein in single color brioche after about an inch of two color brioche.  

I sort of followed the decreases in the pattern-- they're on the skinny end. I did 5 repeats of each of those sections and that pretty much took me to the end of my yarn.  I did follow the recommended stretchy bindoff. And I did go down a needle size as recommended for the brioche.  I'm not especially good at decreasing in brioche yet so whether what I did was exactly correct is unlikely but it's within the vicinity. 

It was washed in Soak --with, at it turns out, an entirely unnecessary color catcher.  AudioGirl will be able to toss it in the washer and dryer next time -- which is good as I expect her cat Dinah will also enjoy sleeping on it. Ends to weave in tomorrow when it dries and then I need to figure out how one gift wraps a ten foot shawl. 

*No, not a surprise. She's been getting text updates every step so it would be what she wanted. At this scale, surprises are a good idea for very few of us.
**Hilarious podcast about medical history