The Scarf Goes to Work

Just a quick update--here is DH heading off to work, proudly strutting the Doctor Who scarf. Cute, huh?

I did it!

The Doctor Who scarf is finally finished. It is easily the largest thing I've ever knitted. It's about 16 feet long and maybe 14 inches wide. There are 8 colors used in total and 48 color changes. All in garter stitch. This project challenged my fortitude, let me tell you.



Even the kids were glad I finished it.


So glad that it was impossible to get the image of it that I'd envisioned.


Maybe tomorrow. DH is going to wear it to work (I'll get a photo of him on the way out the door), so I'll have to try when he gets home. :-)

While I was finishing up the last three colors last night, I had a chance to reflect on my experience knitting this scarf. Here's what I learned:

1. Always have more than one knit project on the needles. It's very easy for enthusiasm to flag when faced with a large undertaking like this.
2. Spend a knitting session, or two, just focusing on weaving in the ends. It really would have sucked to have to weave them all in today. It was nice just having a few--it went quickly and I was really able to enjoy having finished this monster!
3. I don't knit as fast as I thought I did. I mean, I reckoned myself a pretty speedy knitter since I was able to knock of small projects so quickly--a baby hat in a day, a pair of socks in a weekend, 2 pairs of Fetching in another weekend. Boy was I wrong. I figured last night that I was averaging about two and a half minutes per row. With 60 stitches in a row, that's 24 stitches a minute. I guess that's not too bad. Here's some more math. There are 890 rows in this scarf so it took me around 37 knitting hours to complete. Sheesh, then why on earth was it on the needles that long? I'll tell you why. If I had to knit for 37 hours straight on that thing (or even 8 hours a day for a week), then I probably would have strangled someone with it. Thank goodness for other WIPs!

Oh, I'm so thrilled. Now I can turn to other projects which have been waiting in the wings. Like this:


and this:

and this:

and, of course, these:


There are more photos, but I have so much yarn in my stash and I didn't want to upset you low-bandwidth folks. Most of my yarn was purchased while Doctor Who was on the needles. I guess I was really craving some knitting variety.

PS--> Don't forget to hit the gallery for images of stuff I've finished. :-)

Done!

I did it! I finished knitting the Doctor Who scarf last night. All that remains is end weaving (which shouldn't be too bad because I wove most ends as I went) and tassel making (also easy). Woo-hoo! Check back for pictures and commentary. :-)

30 second movies

I admit that I often enjoy commercials. The really good ones are like tiny little movies--a complete story arc in under a minute. Yesterday was the advertising industry's big chance to knock the socks off a huge demographic--the Superbowl. Companies pay a lot of money to advertise during the Superbowl--we're talking as much as $43,000 for each second of air time--and so they do their very best to make their ads entertaining and memorable. Lucky for us, and thanks to the power of You Tube, we no longer have to suffer the Big Game to see them.

Many of the ads this year are quite violent and while I don't generally condone violence, it can be entertaining. Case in point: Terminator 2. Violent as heck, but very entertaining. Most of the superbowl ads were OK. Here are my favorites (from You Tube):

Everyone knows someone like this.

This one has a great punchline.

This one was pretty good.

But I think this one was the funniest.

But the best commercial I've seen in a long time is this one which they say has been banned from TV and therefore did not air during the Superbowl. Too bad.

As a side note, I learned today that 1 cup of flour weighs in at around 4 ounces (depending on how you measure it), not at the 7 ounces I guessed. For future reference, if you have a cookie making method that makes really great cookies, don't screw it up by guessing the weight of a cup of flour. Seriously. There's nothing more annoying than having to answer the question "Well, did you follow the recipe?" with, "Kind of."

I am going to try to finish the Doctor Who scarf tonight. Pray for me.