I'm in this group on Ravelry (okay, yes, it's Harry Potter-themed) that has 3-month-long "terms" composed of "classes" that last 1 month each. So each month there are six "classes" offered, and you have to knit at least one of them--they're things like "knit something cabled" or "knit something in a plant fiber" or "knit something embodying love". This month there is one to clear a "weed" out of your project basket and finish it up--guess which one I have chosen? Yep. The wedding blanket o' doom, for my favorite cousin, which should have been gifted to her, oh, I dunno, maybe BEFORE her first child was born. The nice thing is that if I get this finished, I get bonus points for things like the project having reached "mythic" status (i.e. the intended recipient no longer believes it exists) and for a video testimonial. If I am diligent and actually accomplish this--plans are to do it this weekend--I am pretty sure I can bribe aforementioned cousin to do a short video testimonial for me. Right, K la? Right??? (I promise it won't take more than two minutes away from NaNo. It can be a 10-second video. Really. I will beg.)
So, for the same group, I'm doing an "OWL". It's supposed to be a project that takes the entire 3 months of the "term", and I decided to do something ambitious back in September, not realizing that everything would all be due on November 30th at the same time. So I'm knitting this. It's a lace shawl (my first lace). It's huge. It is on tiny needles. The "hard" part (the center) took me two months. Now I'm on the "slow" part--knitting 5,000 beads into the netting on the outside. I'm about 1,200 beads into it. Putting the beads on entails sitting for an hour or two (while watching tv or something) and dipping a beading needle repeatedly into a bowl of beads, then locking the cat in the bedroom and unstringing hundreds of yards of lace up and down the hallway and pushing thousands of beads down those hundreds of yards until there is about three inches in between EACH BEAD, and then re-balling those hundreds of beaded yards so they don't tangle. And THEN knitting with them.
(I'm in love with it, by the way. I do not at all mind the effort that goes into the beading. I'm so in love with this shawl it could kill a man and I would forgive it.)
