Mimosa Odysseia Final

I wanted to follow the process of this huge shawl on the blog, but the darned cord that transfers photos from my camera to my laptop was missing and turned out just today... from my husbands backbag... I have a stinky feeling that this may be the result of my quick clean-ups at my home, when I stuff things in the less likely places all around the house without giving it a second thought. Ah well, at least it was safe traveling forth and back between home and office.
As a result here follow pictured process from day 1 to day 20:


02.02 I managed to cast-on twice. That wasn't nice because 599 stitches is not nice to CO again. Not to mention that I figured my Moebius mistake out after near 5 rows - that is nearly one and half ball of yarn. And then count and count and re-count countless times. Believe me you do not want to err with that many sts on your needles.

05.02 This where the expected setback happened. I ran out of beads. I had to wait until 13th of February to get the beads (I'll write a separate post about that specific bead shop).

14.02 I just got the beads the day before and decided to spread out the shawl on 3 circulars to see how wide it was going to be. Obviously it was going to be wide (that measuring tape is 150 cm / 60 inches long).

16.02 I've injured my left hand index finger. I have a small cut that often occurs when one is knitting a lot with drying hands. If you didn't know - knitting dries hands quite a deal.

Luckily my daughter takes care of me and offered one of her band-aids to help me through my injury.

18.02 The wrap is 3/4 done, it goes much faster to knit a row, but I've been making silly mistakes, like decreasing too much or too little, or knitting into the stitch below (often happens when knitting on high speed and in stockinette stitch), I've had to rip back 10 cm (4 inches) once but usually my good friend crochet hook helps me out.

20.02 Fresh off the needles. Washing and darning in the ends are ahead.

I'm darning. I only had 22 ends. Until I decided to split the yarn and it became 44. But I got through it pretty fast.

The shawl is blocking. And it became even bigger (I have a king size bed). And then I remembered. Merino stretches - A LOT!!! So from 22 sts per 4 inches / 10 cm it fell down to 19 sts

Here it is, on the ground with two 60 inch / 150 cm measuring tapes close by to show the size.

I used app. 1200 Toho Craft square beads - they are gold lined and it gives them a darker color than they really have.

This is a closeup of the central part here panels come together.

And the last shot:


Stats
Yarn: 11 balls of Sublime Yarns Cashmere Merino Silk DK (75% extrafine merino, 20% silk, 5% cashmere; 127 yrd/116 m for 50 gr ball)
Needle: 4.5 mm
Pattern: Mimosa by Sivia Harding from Big Girl Knits
Extra: 1200 Toho Craft square beads, color 39

I used less beads: didn't insert beads in the diamonds and didn't put them on the edges as well.

Hat attack

Hat attack was fun, but a big waste of money on postage costs. I won't participate again, even though I enjoyed it quite a lot - at least enough to stay up until 2 am in the morning to finish the hat.
So without further a do here is my hat for Tanya from Texas

Stats
Needles: 4,5 mm
Yarn: Bella Baby Sugar (100% wool) held double
Pattern: Binary Cable Hat

I got killed ruthlessly by a hat from Australia by Mel (after it killed me, that sneaky hat made my daughter into a zombie):

Mimosa Odysseia Part Two

So, I'm into my 4th day of knitting and this is how far I've gotten:

It doesn't seem much, but believe me it is, since now i have to bead only every 4th row (instead of every second) and I've gone from 599 sts to, I am guessing, about 490 sts. With every pattern repeat I decrease 10 sts so it gets less and less daunting by the row.
But I'm awfully close to finishing beads, I have some 170 left, but they disappear real quick, I just hope I get the rest of the beads from Japan on time.
Oh, by the way, I was wrong about the amount of days I have to knit this little big monster shawl - instead of 25, I have 21 days - that includes blocking it. So I'd say I have to have it done by 20th at least.

Mimosa Odysseia

Oh, I can feel it on my fingers that this is going to be a long project. I CO yesterday 599 stitches, or that's what I thought, knit 5 rows of garter stitch, one row of 599 purl stitches, started with the edging pattern, worked through 19x26 stitches of edging and then saw that I had more stitches than needed. I started counting and discovered I had done Moebius in the middle of the first row. Argh.

I got some beads as well. I'll go back today to get some more and order the rest. I decided to go with less beads and therefore I'll need about 1000 nr 8 beads. Just I didn't imagine that they'd be so difficult to find here.

I've bought a lot of yarn lately. I've got even more in my Ravelry queue - 52. I have some yarn arriving soon. And I have made promises to myself and to my daughter.
I am way over my head in projects I need or want to finish or start. So I thought I'd make a list in the order of importance.

1. Mimosa shawl from Big Girl Knits - I have 26 days
2. Hat war hat(s) - starts on 9th February
3. Elefante nr 1 to be finished in 26 days (nearly done)
4. Ecquinox pullover - needs to be sewn up and some ends still are not darned.
5. Write down a pattern that has been waiting for awhile
6. I promised a new pullover/cardigan for my daughter already last year
7. I frogged my Artistic - I need to plan better, change the motif a little and start over.
8. Salina for me
9. Wall ornaments using Estonian traditional mitten patterns and 1.5 mm needles
10. Design from Rowan Tapestry
11. Design something elegant and sexy from BBB Meriseta
12. I have material for at least 4 lace shawls - I want to knit at least 2 shawls this year, one will be Mystery Shawl 4. Lace yarns I already have are: Kaalund Echante', TitanWool Merinos Extra, Canetta Super Zephyr, Handpaintedyarns.com Merino Lace. And I have some Jaggerspun Zephyr 2/18 arriving.
13. Finish a baby blankie from random stitch patterns - it doesn't have recipent, so there is a lot of time with it.

I'm pretty sure, I've forgotten something...