Elijah the elephant is finished. The picture is not the clearest, dear friends, because I am a procrastinator extraordinaire. I spent all Saturday reading away at Breaking Dawn (for the second time, mind you, no urgency needed) and couldn’t put it down. Drew gently reminded me that I might want to work on the elephant because the shower was the next day. I ignored this suggestion thinking it would only take me two hours to finish in the morning. I only had arms, eyes, and ears to finish. No big deal. Here comes Sunday morning. I work at a leisurely pace, watching tv online and enjoying myself. Whoa. It’s 11:30 and I haven’t started the ears. The shower is at 2. Ok. I stop watching tv. Pick up the pace. Going along well. Oh my god. I made the first ear upside down. PANIC. I freak out, run for the shower to clean myself up and calm down. Then I work on the ears as if posessed. In the end I was 45 minutes late for the shower, but with an elephant to show for it. Shawna (the future mom) loved it, so it was all worth it.

Finished Elijah with his new mommy.

I didn’t realize that the ears were finished with the kitchener stitch until I was at that point. I used to be irrationally scared of this technique until I was forced to use it and learn it better for these:

Garter Stitch Mitts for Karen

Can you tell I’ve been obsessed with Ysolda’s patterns lately? The Grown-Up Booties are next. Those mitts are actually a baby blue color, but I was taking weird pics with my phone.

In other knitting news, since I haven’t written in awhile, I decided not to rip out any of the Clapotis thanks to some sage advice and laziness on my part. I don’t have a picture update for this one yet, but it’s turning out very nicely. The line shown in the picture below is really the only “bad” spot, but the line of color change should be less apparent when I drop the stitches later. I’m enjoying this pattern, but my mind is starting to wander to other projects. I haven’t touched the second Wicked in weeks. I just got bored with it. I’m still a little scared to do the Minimalist Cardigan because I fear bulky shoulder seams, so if anyone is good with shoulder seams, please give me tips or direct me to places that do.

One last knitterly thing. My boyfriend, Drew, finished his first scarf. It only took him slightly over a year, but that consisted of very very sporadic knitting. He learned English style first, and then switched to Continental when I did. Here is the finished (but unblocked) piece:

Drew