Slipstravaganza finished

When I decided to play along with Stephen West's ten year anniversary mystery shawl knitalong Slipstravaganza I did it for fun and for the distraction. Things were not good here, and the idea of having something to look forward to every Friday, and Stephen's kooky Instagram posts and the community chatting on Ravelry was too good to pass up. I'm usually a product knitter. This time I didn't care if by the end of this I had a fun shawl to wear on the couch, or something to give away.

The knitalong did not let me down. Each clue was something fun and different, but still easy to follow a long with. knitting in such bright colours was cheering.

Using my own hand dyed yarn as the main colour was pretty sweet, and the colours from two of my favourite local dyers (Stranded in Oz and The Purl Box) just added to the fun.

Each weeks clue only took about three days of knitting, except the last, which was a solid ten days of intense knitting.

And then it was done, and I had made this beauty. I love it. It's huge, and yet easy to wear. I'm pretty short, so this might even be considered too big, but I love it.

The colours are bright but still co-ordinated. It feels like wearing a blanket, but looks like, and is, something special.

I was thrilled to find these (I think) banana palms in the local park. It makes these photos look so tropical and exotic!

I'm so glad I did this year's MKAL. It was everything I hoped it would be, and then a little bit more.

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Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises.

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What I made, by Sharon

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