New Project: Summit Wrap

This project was started with gusto in July but thanks to the aforementioned time warp, the progress did not continue as planned. I had high hopes of completing it by August 24. I didn't even come close to being half done by that deadline.



It's a lovely and free pattern from Knitty called Summit. I happened upon it when I wanted to use some fabulous ivory silk yarn I bought at last year's Knit and Crochet show in Manchester for some kind of wrap for a friend getting married. Her dress is was a simple, ivory silk dress, perfect for the bride and the beautiful beach setting. When I saw this wrap on Ravelry, I thought it would be perfect - simple yet elegant, and the instructions seemed to be something I could handle.

A really fun new skill I've acquired with this pattern is now I can knit backwards! No, really. I'm knitting backwards. As in, not turning my work in order to do stockinette stitch. It's awesome! The pattern has small, repetitive bits of stockinette over 6 or 11 stitches. The knitting backwards makes it just a little bit faster than turning the work back and forth over and over again as the shawl gets bigger.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have enough yarn for a slightly-smaller wrap. I (accidentally) left off one column of waves making it a bit narrower. As it gets longer I'll hopefully be able to guess when to start ending it so that I have enough yarn left to finish it. I'm also hoping that the finished wrap is long enough that it doesn't look silly.

Because I wasn't sure if it would actually get finished in time, I did not tell the bride in advance I was making it. I did let her know about it on her wedding day...but gifts were the furthest thing from her mind. Hurricane Irene had her sights set on the Outer Banks, the very beach where her wedding was to take place. So the wedding was moved up by a day and while tons of people were evacuating, Sean and I were driving towards the storm to make it to the wedding. It was a lovely ceremony with fewer guests than planned but they were happily married in the end. And everyone made it safely home before the storm arrived. Here are a couple of photos from Friday morning before we hightailed it out of town.





I believe that technically I have a year after the wedding to send a gift. Given the speed at which the first part was completed, I can't procrastinate. I'll need to fit this in as a project I work on at least once a week. Here's hoping I keep to that plan.