I finished my Color Affection Saturday morning. I wove in the ends on the train as I headed to Gather Here for some quality knitting time. Tuesday I decided to dump everything on the day bed onto the floor (only sort of a joke) and I blocked the shawl. It took up the entire day bed and over the edge against the wall.
Color Affection is huge.
It is also a really easy knit. Unlike many knits I've done, this one didn't require that I be completely sober, or even awake. It is a great party knit if you, like me, need to do something with your hands to keep you away from the food trays.
Victor approves with a single paw and a stay.
I understand that such a bandwagon knit (like Monkey, which I've made, and Clapotis, which I have not) is not necessarily everyone's cup of tea, but this project does has a few things going for it.
1. It is huge. It is big enough to wear wrapped around your shoulders without a shawl pin, leaving your arms free. While I love the shawlettes, so many of them do not stay in place without a little outside aid.
2. It's an opportunity to play with fun colorful yarns. While mine is a study in solids, this would be a great spot to take a couple of mostly solid yarns and some wild variegated yarn that would look bad in cables or lace.
3. While the rows do get huge, because it is garter stitch rather than stockinette, it is quicker to get those huge rows done.
4. It's fairly affordable. It's 3 skeins of sock yarn, but I'm pretty sure I have enough of all of the colors to do another one as long as I make the blue the main color.
5. It's quick. Mine took me 20 days. I knit other things during that time. I was at Squam, so I took classes and I certainly had some weekend days where I didn't even take the knitting out of the bag.
Mine was knit with Heritage Silk in Mango and Silvery Grey and the Loopy Ewe solid series in Teal (this is my Camp Loopy project 1). I did knit the short row section too long (1 extra repeat), because it wasn't clear to me from the instructions that the short rows didn't go all the way across. However, you could actually if you preferred it for the look knit the short row section all the way across and be perfectly situated for the solid section at the end. It is a very flexible design.
I'm happy with it, and that's a good thing. I have yarn from The Woolen Rabbit for making a second one of these sometime maybe in October when a little more warmth and variety will be a very good thing.