The shawl is done! And blocked! And draped artfully over a dining room chair. I am superstitiously waiting to weave in the few remaining ends during the closing ceremony.

It expanded so much in blocking that it wouldn't fit on my blocking board (30"x48"), so corners were pinned, rather imperfectly, to the bedspread on my spare bed. And I ran out of pins; fortunately I could use wires for the top and center.

I made three sets of mistakes in knitting. I can only find one of them now, even knowing were to look, and I have to look very closely to see it.

Since I finished it; I have (1) made a free-form hat for my mother, in an attempt to use up the yarn I made her a sweater out of. I hated knitting with this yarn (Donegal Tweed) and I want not to have any more of it. Even knitting a rather loose hat to my mother's specifications, I didn't succeed in using up the extra. (2) made a gauge swatch for a sweater for myself. (3) finished weaving in ends for the socks I was maniacally knitting to finish up before the Olympics. (4) started knitting a pair of socks out of Opal in the Flamingo colorway. The hat, socks, and gauge swatch are being blocked.

Eventually, there will be pictures. But now, I'm just thrilled to be done.

Yes it is! I just finished binding off my Kiri shawl from All Tangled Up (link to PDF of the pattern on her sidebar). The shawl is now resting over the back of one of my dining room chairs getting ready to be blocked. Pictures later...there's still hockey to watch this afternoon.

The short version is: I'm way ahead of schedule. I started the 12th and final pattern repeat tonight during the ice dancing (between skaters, mostly). I just started the third ball of yarn, so I should have plenty left.

There are mistakes, hopefully minor, that I couldn't be arsed to frog and fix. Yeah, I know, lifelines. But still. The problem I'm having with lace is that I won't be able to tell which mistakes will show until I block, and I'm not going to block until I'm done. I mean, with socks, I know which problems will show and which won't, and I just don't worry about the ones that won't show. In fact, in one of the pairs of socks I did this summer, I didn't even see the errors (getting out of synch in an unusual rib pattern) until I had woven in ends, washed the socks, and worn them a full day. But, on this shawl, there are maybe three places where I had to fudge the lace pattern to keep the right number of stitches (and this doesn't count the yarn overs that I had to do retroactively).

At the rate I'm going, I'll finish the shawl by Monday, which gives me plenty of time to block and photograph.

By the close of business yesterday, I was almost done with the 7th pattern repetition out of 12 for my Kiri shawl. And I was finished with the first ball of yarn (out of 3). The handy-dandy Excel spreadsheet I'd downloaded from one of the other Olympians doing a Kiri indicates that there are a total of just under 31,000 stitches in the shawl, and I've done over 11,000. Two conclusions: I'm a third of the way done; and I'll have enough yarn for a full 12 pattern repetitions.

I've learned a few things along the way.

If you sit and knit immediately after two hours of snow-shoveling, without resting and taking an anti-inflammatory, you're more likely to make mistakes.

Count, count, count. And when you're done, count again. If you don't, the lace isn't going to look right.

You will make mistakes. It's what you do, once you've found them that makes the difference.

If you've forgotten a yarn over (easy to do), you can fix it on the next pattern row if you do a good job of "reading" where it goes. Beyond that, you're screwed!

There are times when what you should do is tink back. I was much better about doing that when the rows were less than 40 stitches long, but now that I'm up over 200 stitches per row, not so much.

I'm using a not-entirely-smoothly-spun alpaca yarn (somewhere between fingering and lace weight). Based on my progress, I'd say it's approximately the same yardage as the Kid Silk Haze the pattern calls for. But, ye Ghods, I can't imagine how anyone could do this in a mohair; it's fiddly enough with my alpaca!

Last night before bed, I carefully prepared my Olympic knitting. I took the first ball of yarn and managed to find the starting point, sometimes no easy task with center-pull balls. I checked the printout of my pattern to make sure I hadn't lost a page, and moved it into the living room, where it would be handy. I rummaged through my box of needles and found a size 7 29 inch circular needle.

And, most importantly, I indulged in manic speed knitting to finish the pair of socks that I had on the needle. The second sock really needed only a few more rounds, well, if 45 counts as a few, but I really wanted to have it done. And I did, without too much loss of sleep.

So, when I got home from work today, there was no barrier to my just starting in. Even though the Opening Ceremony wasn't going to be broadcast until 8PM EST, it was on tape delay, and the Official Rules said we could go by the actual time. And that was good enough for me.

The design of this shawl is that you start with a few stitches, and increase as you go, at least 4 stitches on each pattern row. Thus, each row is longer than the previous. And by the very end, you have hundreds of stitches to slog through. Thus, it's important to make rapid progress at the beginning. And I did. I got through the set-up rows and two full repetitions of the pattern (out of 10-12 that I'll ultimately do). And, by the time I started the second pattern repetition, it dawned on me that the pattern was a slight variant of exactly the same pattern used in the socks. The pattern of increases and decreases makes a leaf-shape that's quite attractive.

So, finishing up the socks wasn't just clearing the decks; it was training!

Along with 2500 of my closest friends, I've signed on to the Knitting Olympics. Yes, Stephanie posed the challenge, and has been over-whelmed by the sheer magnitude of the response. I haven't decided whether or not to go all jingoistic and join Team USA, but I still might.

The ground rules are that you pick a challenging project (that is, challenging for you), cast on during the opening ceremony and finish by the closing ceremony. I have my project all picked out, and I have yarn in my stash.

But, TV coverage, coverage of events I want to watch, begins in the US before the tape-delayed coverage of the opening ceremony. According to the TV schedule for next week, there will be a hockey game, on live, no less, Saturday morning. And there will be assorted events Saturday afternoon. Of course, in Turin, these will be taking place after the opening ceremony., but, by the magic of television, we get to see them first.

So, can I start my shawl during the hockey game Saturday morning? Inquiring minds want to know.