5-21-12: This will be saved for my Rav-O-lympics project. The new needles I bought for this project just arrived today. Against every fiber of my being I will make a swatch.

6-17-12: I finished the swatch awhile ago, but finally sat down and measured. After blocking I got a gauge of about 5 stitches per inch (20 sts over 4 inches) and the pattern calls for 23 stitches over 4 inches. I am not going to reswatch as I don’t want to waste yarn so I will either go down a needle size or make a medium instead of a large.

7-16-12: Skeins are caked and my project is in my bag waiting (not-so) patiently for 3 pm tomorrow!!

7-17-12: GOOD GRIEF!!! I thought the olympics started today. What a dork I am!! I started my project, but now I will rip it out as I had a “false start”. This is actually good news. I didn’t like the way it started out so this will give me some time to re-think the edging.

7-27-12: Got the right day and casted on!

7-31-12: Ripped it out. I don’t like the M1’s every row. Switched to YO’s for the edging increases and lifted increases for the middle section. Given that we’re 5 days into the olympics and I’m basically on day 1 I don’t think I will finish in time.

11-18-12: (Karen is panting) I finished! I finished!! Did I win????
Karen looks around….Hello???? Where is everyone??? Hellllooo??
(2 hours later at the ceremony) And the final award for Extreme Last Place goes to…..(envelope rips) Karen Lynn! (The confetti flies, balloons are released and crowd cheers! Karen walks to the stage to give her acceptance speech)
“I am so honored to receive this award! I can’t believe it. I need to thank my family for always being there…for needing me more than my shawl, for my other knitting projects which seemed shiny and new and more fun than this shawl and last but not least, the first craft fair I ever entered which usurped any remaining time I had (I did rather poorly at the craft fair I might add).
MOST OF ALL I need to thank wynk for sending me her left over yarn so I could complete this shawl. I had about 50 stitches left of the bind off when I ran out of yarn. Without Wynk I would have to rip back or buy a new skein.
(the music cues up and the emcee starts pulling on Karen’s arm to get her away from the podium)

…And thanks for my neighbor and her mother for modeling the shawl!