Deadline Knitting Done -- Racing the Retirement Clock

Amongst the Work Zooms and Friend Zooms and navigating yet another grocery order (why do we eat so much, why are there *always* dishes?) -- there's been less knitting than many have expected of me this summer. My passive knitting, currently the endless Honey Cowls, has mostly sat beside me while I run another meeting, try to answer just a few more emails before the next call, or dive into grading. 

But there was one special project that I needed to do: a shawl for my now Emeritus Dean. MC retired on the last day of July and, ultimately, I had to mail this to her because we don't know when we'll get to celebrate in person again. "Dear M -- please I need your home address" is one of those very strange emails of this time. 

This project was a combination of old and new-- of the stash having just what I needed. I knew she loved blues, a color she wore regularly. And I remembered a special yarn I had bought a decade ago-- before this job, before I'd moved back to Chicago. I had tubes of beads from the Loopy Academy project that might work -- and of course I had Nim Teasdale, a designer whose entire oeuvre I am slowly working my way through. 

Now, we learned last December that I am capable of knitting one of these shawls, without beads, in two weeks if I am doing absolutely nothing else. Add in a lot more work, pandemic brain, and 1.5 tubes of beads and this was just over two months from start to finish. As always the pattern is beautifully written. 

One of the interesting techniques is that this is a choose your own number of repeats and for the edging. Which meant rummaging around in Ravelry until I'd found a couple that I liked and liberally borrowing their repeat counts. I've added mine to my project notes -- happy to share if you're not using Ravelry--  so others can see how it looks. 

This wasn't a huge addition to Stash Dash 2020 -- only 640 yards. But it's one of the most meaningful and intentional knits I'll do this year and I was so glad to hear when it arrived safely!

And of course I started another shawl -- not a Nim surprisingly -- as soon as this was blocked. (That's another pandemic complaint, the Philosopher has his office in our dining room, which means I can't take it over for blocking. This was in our bedroom, which is less than ideal for remembering to not step on pins on your way to bed. 

The yarn is Alpha B BFF B Yarn in the Karashu colorway, purchased August 2010. Her etsy store is on hiatus but there appears to be some available here: https://www.foryarnssake.com/brands/alpha-b-yarns/. The beads are the Caravan Beads in the Gunmetal Iris color -- 1.5 tubes.  I used my KnitPicks interchangeables and, per instruction, bound off with a giant needle (size 15 -- 10 mm) It felt ridiculous but blocked beautifully.