Spring Awakening - A Four Seasons Design

New from Georgina Bow Creations: Spring Awakening - a new stole design from the Four Seasons Stole Collection.

The brighter, warmer days of spring often still have a chill to them which will be chased away by the cozy warmth of mohair. The pattern represents the seasonal transition from Winter's chill to the new life of Spring with its cables which burst into bloom. Flowers and beads adorn both ends. The stole is knitted from one end to the other with no breaks and no grafting, making length adjustments easy to do. The edges are knitted with the body of the stole, so it is not necessary to apply them later. When you are through, you are through. The finished size is 20" wide and 78" long. If desired, a shorter or longer length is also possible. The stole is knitted on US size 10 needles (6.5 mm) and requires 750 yards of yarn such as Classic Elite LeGran with a gauge of about 4 stitches per inch. For those with mohair allergies, a brushed alpaca will work or for a non-fuzzy option, any worsted weight yarn will be appropriate. Approximately 200 size 6 seed beads are used in this design.

Georgina Bow will also be hosting a Four Seasons Knit Along for all of the designs in this series. For more information or to join, please see the KAL site (CLICK HERE)

$6.00

Be sure to check out the other pattern in this series, Winter Slumbers.

Georgina Bow Creations and Pink Lemon Twist patterns cannot be combined in a single purchase. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

This could be a mistake.

I'm not sure if I should share this publicly or not. Perhaps I should just lie down for a bit until the feeling passes. In my own defense, there is definitely documentation of temporary insanity around here and at this point, it's only bouncing around in my head and there's no way I could even consider starting such a hare-brained idea until after we get moved and reasonably settled. What am I talking about?

Well, um, crochet. Before you all make a run for the door and someone gets trampled, let me explain. I have never been a fan of crochet. I don't really like the way the stitches look, the way it doesn't move like knitting, and being born in the 70's, I've been scarred by synthetic fibers, unnaturally bright colors, and the granny square.* Throw an insidiously smiling toilet paper doll in the mix and you can understand where I'm coming from. (Why are they smiling? They live on the back of a toilet. That can't be a good place to live, think of the view they see day in and day out. They are probably plotting to attack the next person who comes in and sits down. It's not natural.)

So what's going on around here? The other day I got a Garnet Hill catalog in the mail. Right now any catalog that comes to this house doesn't last long (we don't have time to shop), but the day this one came I had to take Caleb somewhere right after school which meant we were driving and I needed to park in the pick up loop. As anyone who has school age kids knows, if you plan on being on the pick up loop when your kid gets out of school you have to get to school pretty early (otherwise you'll be in the school driveway or out in the street waiting in line - getting into the loop is competitive and I play to win). I grabbed the mail as I went to the school to park on the loop and then sat there and read it. As I was flipping through the catalog I came across this. (Feel free to take a minute and look at both of the colorways it's available in, I'll wait.) It is made of wool, not acrylic, the squares are hexagons (which I guess is impossible, but go with me here), and the colors, well the colors sing! They don't clash, fight, or glare at you across the room. They coordinate and blend and the depth reminds me of something antique and tea dyed (or just stained in the way antique things really are), from a time before acrylic walked the earth. The scale of the units is also smaller than what most granny square afghans use (is it granny square, what is this called?) When I saw it, I thought, "Hey, that's really pretty and interesting! It's crochet that I actually like!" Then I turned the page and found some really great cashmere sweaters and forgot about the throw. Except that I didn't forget. I keep thinking about it randomly. For no apparent reason. I don't crochet, why am I thinking of color schemes?

For some reason, this seems like a good idea to me (making something similar, that is). Never mind that we are in the early stages of a move, never mind that I don't and can't crochet. I'm actually considering learning to crochet just so I can make this. Using fleece throws in a knitter's house just seems wrong and we all know that a knitted throw and Ramius' claws are not a good mix. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that crochet is tighter and will have fewer places for Ramius to snag and, while it's not knitted, it could be wool and clearly, it could be really pretty. Both my mom and my mother in law crochet, so learning how to do this shouldn't be hard and it's not like I don't have yarn sources. We'll have to see if the feeling goes away after we move.

*I don't mean to be rude to those who love crochet, but the 1970's were a rough decade for crochet and many of us have never recovered. I'm sure your crochet is absolutely gorgeous.

Changes

In all the craziness that is our lives right now, I occasionally have a coherent thought (when I'm not dressing my son in my clothes) about knitting. When I knit, I knit clothing - sweaters, socks, shawls, that kind of stuff. I'm not really a household knitting kind of person (not that household knitting is bad, my all time favorite dishcloths are handknit garter stitch that I got 15 years ago as part of a wedding gift).

The funny thing about clothing is that it has to be appropriate to wear in the location you're wearing it. Now Virginia and Texas have very different climates. Both have hot, humid summers (Virginia's summers are typically very similar to Texas summers, believe it or not). But Texas likes to have summer for about 10 months of the year (then it has a tiny winter time when everyone freezes to death). In Virginia, there are actually 4 seasons (for those of you in Texas that are wondering, there is also Spring and Fall). We have really enjoyed having 4 seasons here in Virginia. This variety of seasons makes for lots of fun knitting. Obviously, if I continue knitting the kinds and weights of things in Texas that I do here, I will have to have several wardrobe changes a day during the brief cold spell that Texas gets around January and February in order to wear everything I knit for cold weather. This seems like a lot of trouble to me, so I think my best option is to change my knitting style a bit.

There are a couple of things that will work in my favor:

1. I am almost always cold.
2. Very hot outside places tend to be over-airconditioned inside and you can easily get hypothermia while eating dinner in a restaurant.

The majority of my knitting that is worsted weight or heavier has been cardigans which do provide for air flow so I think I'll still get plenty of wear out of them. My lace shawls and stoles will be perfect to wrap around my shoulders in the subarctic indoors of the South, but will easily go into a bag when I go outside. Socks are needed wherever you live, just because.

I could always start knitting lots of things in cotton, but I don't like the way it feels to knit cotton. I've heard great things about Rowan's Calmer but the microfiber used with the cotton (which is what gives it the elasticity) is acrylic. I'm allergic to acrylic. Fortunately, I think I've figured out something of a plan (at least as much of a knitting plan as someone with moving brain can come up with, but hey, for me a knitting plan is a business plan - I write knitting patterns for a job!) I really enjoyed knitting with Shelridge Farm's Wool Cotton Yarn and I've knit with Brown Sheep's Cotton Fleece and enjoyed it before. I also love knitting with 100% wool and since wool does breath well, I see no reason to quit, but I think I'll be happier knitting it at a finer gauge. After all, when I buy a sweater (yes, I do sometimes) it's always a fine gauge sweater, so why not knit one? Add to that the fact that I tend to spin fine yarns, I think this will be easier than I thought. And if Texas decides to have a really cold winter one year? I'm ready for it baby!

I've got moving brain

We're less than two weeks into this and I've got moving brain already. This morning while Caleb was finishing his breakfast I was folding clothes and I put his clothes for the day out on his bed. (I realize that parents of little girls don't pick out their daughter's outfits after about 3 or 4, but Caleb doesn't mind if I get out his clothes for school, then he doesn't have to think about it. Not that jeans and a long sleeved T take that much thinking.) He came upstairs and started getting ready for school. Then he was putting on his jeans and I heard, "I wish my jeans would fit better!" I asked what the problem was since he'd worn them before and he told me he didn't know but that his jeans were falling off. Now in all the chaos around here, we haven't been forgetting to feed Caleb so he hasn't lost weight. I took a look at his jeans and realized he was wearing a pair of my capri jeans - they fit him for length but they were a bit large in the hip area. I promptly got him out a pair of his own jeans and put my capris in my closet. He was still laughing at me when we walked to school. Poor baby.

Things have been crazy chaotic around here. We've all been working to clear out closets (makes them look bigger), organize things, and get the house ready to show. We are putting the house on the market this weekend (if it kills us). Added to that, I've had to go through everything with the relocation specialists both from Mickael's work and from the firm they hire to help us with the move which has meant several hours total on the phone and about 10 pages of notes. We've been transferred before so I know what does and doesn't work for me and I have a notebook with all the notes, names, phone numbers and everything else I have to keep up with (eventually it will include everything I've written down for both locations) as well as an accordion file for forms and paperwork. All of this goes into a tote bag that will be glued to me for the next few months until we close on the new house at the new location. It just takes some time to get everything organized and people contacted and the ball rolling on this. I really hope that now that I've got a start on the paperwork and once the house is actually listed, that in a week or so I'll start to have functioning brain cells for a bit. Caleb is just hoping I don't try to dress him in women's clothing again.

Serendipity

Introducing another great pattern from Georgina Bow Creations...Serendipity!

This is the design for Mystery Stole 4 (2008), now available in a traditional pattern format.

According to Websters New World Dictionary, Serendipity is an apparent aptitude for making accidental fortunate discoveries. Come knit the Serendipity Stole and make your own discoveries! This design is beautiful in any color, choose one that you love. Beads are an important part of the design and should be chosen with enough contrast to show up on the stole. The lace motifs flow together with the beaded motifs, making the knitting non repetitive and interesting to work. Edgings are part of the design and knitted as you go so once you are through, you're through.

This design is knit from the ends toward the center in two sections and these sections are then grafted together near the center. (Don't worry, complete grafting directions are included to walk you through this process.) Stitch patterns are charted. Worked in laceweight yarn with size 8 seed beads it finishes at 60 to 72 inches long and 16 inches wide. The stole design does not allow for adjusting size up or down, but using fingering weight yarn instead of laceweight will make it larger (conversely, cobweb weight will make the finished stole smaller).

1100 yards/990 meters laceweight yarn
Size 8 seed beads (approximately 1000)

Shown in KnitPicks Bare Laceweight (dyed by the designer) knit on US 4's (3.5 mm) needles.

Also included in this pattern, Serendipity Socks. Motifs similar to those on the stole were created for a coordinating sock. Wear them together or just enjoy the socks in your more casual moments. Stitch patterns are charted. Requires 100 grams fingering weight sock yarn to knit at 8 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch. Shown in KnitPicks Bare Fingering weight (dyed by the designer).

Both the stole and the socks are included in a single pattern purchase.

$6.00

Georgina Bow Creations Patterns cannot be combined with Pink Lemon Twist patterns into a single purchase. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

Wabenschal Done!

Here it is! All finished up and blocked. It ended up being about 12 inches wide and probably 80 inches long (the fact that it ends in points makes this more managable than it would be if it was squared off at the ends).

Details: Wabenschal pattern (Free!)
Size US 5 needles
I used DK weight silk from Colourmart (I think it's 15/50NM weight) - I used less than one cone (each cone is 550 yards)
I worked the point area until I had 9 repeats across instead of 5 as the pattern is written.

Pink Lemon Twist is Westward Bound!

Go West Young Dog! That's right, we have been transferred to Dallas, TX and Finn is celebrating by showing off his new style! We just found out and our house is currently being readied to put on the market, Caleb is getting crazy with the Magic Eraser, Mickael and I are wondering why we have so much junk, Finn is thoroughly confused (he's never been through a move before), and Ramius doesn't care as long we wake him up when it's time to get in the car and go (he's moved four times, he's a pro). This is very exciting for us as it puts us in the same town as Rick, my brother, and his wife Mindy, owner of the original Hanami. It also gets us less than two hours from Mickael's parents and only a day away from my parents. (Caleb has realized that being closer to grandparents really maximizes the opportunities they have for spoiling him.)

What this means for the blog is that blogging will be a bit sporadic for a while, I might change the time of day that I blog, and since the only knitting I'm really doing right now is for the patterns I'm finishing up, you might not be able to see much knitting on the blog. Just bear with us and excuse our mess while we get things straightened out!
Finn wonders if there is bacon in this Dallas place and if he has to wear the hat all the time to get some.

Wabenschal, Cast Off

I was able to finish the Wabenschal yesterday and here it is! (In all it's unblocked, pathetic droopiness.) Unblocked it seems to be around 72-80 inches long. I don't really expect it to get much bigger since this yarn is silk and silk doesn't have any elasticity. Any extra length I get from blocking will be from the elasticity naturally in knits. This weekend it will have a gentle bath and a nice blocking. (Anytime you are messing with a wet protein fiber - both silk and wool are protein fibers - it's important to remember that they are weaker when they're wet than they are when they are dry. Cotton and linen are actually stronger when they're wet than they are dry.)

And in case you're wondering why the bed is modeling the Wabenschal instead of Finn, he's busy watching birds right now and can't be bothered.

Have a great weekend!

Nothing to see here...

But I have started decreasing for the point on the Wabenschal! It doesn't look too different from yesterday yet so I hated to bore you with another picture (especially after yesterday's modeled shot). I'm hoping to finish it today. I think Finn thought I was going to clean out his ears yesterday when I told him to sit and stay for the photo. He hates having his ears cleaned out. When I took the Wabenschal off him and told him thank you and he could go, the look he gave me was very clearly saying, "What, that's it?" He does appreciate all the comments you left for him.

A picture is worth a thousand words

How much are two pictures worth?

Wabenschal!

As you could tell from Ramius' post yesterday, I spent most of the weekend working on a sock design. I also got more done on the Wabenschal though. I think I'm getting pretty close to the point where I'll start the decreasing for the end, so I'm feeling pretty good about getting it finished up soon.

I've been thinking about my current projects and with two sock patterns of two designs each needing to be finished up pretty quickly, I think I'm going to put Juno on the back burner and just work on socks (non bloggable) and the Wabenschal. Once I finish the Wabenschal, I can then get back on Juno (and socks). I think this will help me finish things faster which makes me feel like I'm actually getting some work done instead of treading water.

I am aiming for Halloween to have the pattern finished for the Yarn4Socks December sock club and then I'll only have the Air socks to finish up, and those don't have a deadline. I am trying to finish those by the end of the year though. I do finally have one of the Yarn4Socks designs finished and I'll finish knitting the sample sock later today, so I feel pretty confident that a Halloween goal is reachable. Of course, I'll probably finish the year knitting second socks for all these designs.

These two sock patterns will probably be the last patterns I release this year, but I'm already planning more lace for next year. I'm thinking about blogging the design process and knitting progress of at least one of next year's lace designs like I did with Hanami. Is this something that you guys would be interested in seeing on the blog or should I just keep it all a secret until the pattern launch?

Let me tell you about my weekend.

I really have to get this place whipped into shape and if the only way to do that is lectures at 2:00 AM, that's what I'll do. The biggest problem around here is that the house is cold. Even if I go all the way upstairs, where it's really quite pleasant in the summer, I'm not warm enough now. The people seem to think the house is fine. I know this because they haven't turned on the heat yet. Seriously, I watched the weather the other morning and its only getting up to about 70 degrees during the day. This is a problem. We need the heat.

My only alternative to freezing into a really cute cat-cicle is to sit on the people. There are some major problems with this though. Anytime I'm sitting on the people, That Dog Thing can get to me and snarfle me. My ear was wet all morning yesterday from a particularly disgusting attack (he's always more bouncy and causes more trouble in the morning than he is the rest of the day). Gross. Also, the Caleb person and Daddy person are wiggly and hard to sit on. The Mommy person is fairly well trained in keeping the cat warm (I think she's cold too, why else would she spend so much time knitting sweaters). This weekend though, she was playing with that yarn-y tube thing she always does (she calls it a sock, I call it annoying). It's bad enough that she has those pointy stick things that I'm not allowed to chase, but then there's the yarn. It always ends up trailing across my beautiful fur and tickling my ears and making me twitch. It's hard to sleep when you're twitching. Then, the more she messes with the tube thing, the longer it hangs down and eventually it starts bashing me in the head as she changes from one pointy stick to another. I mean enough already. Chew on the pointy stick things, put the string stuff away and wrap the cat in a blanket! My only options this weekend were to freeze to death or be bashed by Mommy's "sock," whatever that is. Oh, the things I do for survival.

I have no idea why I put up with this family. I've got to go, it's cloudy outside today so I'm going to sit in the window and meow at the sky until the sun comes out.

Juno Fronts, Barely

I've just started the fronts of Juno and have only worked a tiny bit on them. When I uploaded the picture I realized they looked like handknit eyebrows. Why anyone would knit eyebrows I don't know, but it wouldn't really surprise me to find that someone, somewhere has.

Why is it taking me so long to work on this? Well I've been a bit sidetracked. About a week and a half ago I was contacted by Valerie from Yarn4Socks, asking if I would be interested in doing the pattern for their December club again. (I did the pattern for December last year - it was Scarborough Fair and Caledonian Mist.) I was thrilled with the opportunity to do this and agreed immediately. At the time, I was working on the second sock from the Mountain Stream pair in the Water pattern. I was also getting dirty looks from the yarns selected to become the Air sock collection. The sock club dyer (Woolarina) was getting the yarn figured out (which yarn, what colors, etc) and was going to send it to me ASAP, so I knew I had only a few days to get other things finished up and figured out before I'd need to devote my time to the pattern for the sock club. Since I package two designs in each sock pattern, I have to write both sets of directions and get the pattern finished for Yarn4Socks by the first of November. I quickly went stash diving and came up with a yarn for the second pair of socks that would fit with the general theme and got to work.

I had already designed both pairs of socks for the Air pattern, but it was all notes and graph paper so on Wednesday morning I sat down at the computer, charted everything and wrote the patterns. The only thing the Air pattern needs is sample socks (actually photos of sample socks, but I'll need to knit them before I can photograph them). Then Wednesday afternoon I sat down and charted and wrote the pattern for the secondary design for the sock club (I didn't have the actual yarn for the sock club socks so I couldn't write that pattern yet). Finally Wednesday afternoon I sat down and started knitting the second sock club pattern. It didn't work. I had two variations on the design and neither one worked. At 7:00 PM Wednesday night I admitted to myself that I would have start over on the second sock club pattern.

Thursday morning I woke up, got everyone going in the general direction they needed to go and started playing with graph paper and stitch dictionaries. By 4:00 PM yesterday afternoon I finally had a design. Unfortunately, I can't really show it to anyone yet, hence the rather pathetic handknit eyebrows you see above.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm going to be knitting socks (which isn't a bad way to spend a weekend at all!)

Frequently Asked Questions

I thought I'd take a blog post to answer some questions that come up periodically from pattern purchasers. I will link to this post from the pattern pages for myself and my mother and hopefully save everyone some time. If you can think of any other questions you'd like addressed, please leave them in the comments.

How does the pattern purchasing work for Pink Lemon Twist and Georgina Bow Creations Patterns?
All of our patterns are sold using PayPal. Once your payment has been processed by PayPal you will get an email with a download link for each pattern you have purchased. The patterns are downloadable as pdf files. Once you download the files for the patterns you purchased you can print out a copy of the pattern. Many patterns have more than one variation or, in the case of our sock designs, two separate designs in each pattern. If you look at the file before you print, you can print out only the pages you need for the particular project you're working on and save yourself some paper and ink costs. When you are ready to work another variation or the other sock design, print out that one.

I don't have a PayPal account. Is it safe?
PayPal is one of the safest sites on the Internet. Call your bank and get their opinion of PayPal if you're unsure. That being said, PayPal is on the Internet and is not Fort Knox. You still have to protect your own system. Run anti virus software regularly, run spyware checks on your computer regularly, clean out your computer's browser cache. If your PayPal account gets hacked, the hackers probably got through from your system, not PayPal's. Yes, sometimes bad things happen to people's PayPal accounts, but if you protect your computer and your system properly, you should be reasonably safe. If you link PayPal to a bank account, it would be wise to open a separate account for that purpose. That way if someone gets into your PayPal account, they can't take everything from your main account.

I don't use PayPal for various reasons. Can I purchase the patterns another way?
If you don't use PayPal, we can figure out another way for you to get the patterns you are interested in. Just message us on Ravelry (I'm PinkLemon, Mom is GeorginaBow) or use the email address that comes up when you click the "Add To Cart" button and let us know how we can help you. If you live outside the USA, it seems to be cheaper to find a friend who uses PayPal and have them purchase the pattern for you instead of getting a check for US funds.

How long does it take to get the pattern after I purchase it?
Once the payment is processed by PayPal, the download link is sent via email. The time it takes PayPal to process your funds varies however. If your funds are coming from a PayPal account or a credit card, PayPal can instantly verify that the money is there, the payment is processed immediately and you should have your download links in just a few minutes. If your funds are in a bank account you have linked with PayPal, PayPal has no idea how much money you have in the account. In this case they treat your payment as an eCheck and it takes them 4 business days to transfer the money from your bank account and process the payment. Once the payment is processed however, you will get the email with the download links.

My payment has been processed but I still haven't gotten the email with the download links.
The email with the download links is sent by an automated file delivery system that is supposed to be notified when PayPal processes the payment. 98% of the time this works perfectly. Occasionally it doesn't. The first thing you should do is check your spam catchers and your firewall. These tend to protect us from dangerous things like knitting patterns. If it's not there, send an email to the email address on your PayPal receipt, put the name of the pattern in the subject line (so we know it's not spam), include the email address you use with PayPal, and let us know that you haven't received the download links. When we get your email, we will check to see if we can figure out what happened and verify your purchase. Then we'll email you the pattern file. The only downside to this is that neither myself nor my mother are on the computer 24 hours a day. Please give us 48 hours to respond and slightly longer on the weekends. We'll get back to you and we'll get everything sorted out.

I got the download links, downloaded the pattern, but it's missing pictures/text/charts HELP!
OK, this actually happens fairly frequently and is one of the easiest problems to fix. The problem is not the pattern file, it's Adobe Reader. You'll need to go to Adobe.com and download the newest upgrade to Adobe Reader (it's free), install it and open the pattern file again. It should all be there now. I've found I have to update Adobe Reader about twice a year to avoid this. If you deleted the pattern file, thinking it was corrupted, drop us an email at the address on your PayPal receipt, put the pattern name in the subject line and include the email address you use with PayPal so we can verify your purchase and we'll send you the pattern file by email. In the meantime, update your version of Adobe Reader because until you do that, the new pattern file won't open properly either.

My computer crashed and I lost all my patterns! Can I get them again?
Yes. There are two ways you can do this. You can go to PayLoadz.com and request additional download links for your purchased patterns. They will send us an email asking us to approve this and giving us the dates you purchased the patterns. The other way is to email us and tell us what happened. You'll need to give us the email address(es) you use with PayPal, the names of the patterns you had purchased previously, and approximate dates of purchase. Then we'll go in and verify this and send you pattern files via email. Depending on how many patterns you have purchased and how many separate transactions there were, it might take a few days to get everything sorted out, but we should be able to reconstruct your past purchases and get the patterns to you again.

Can I back the patterns up somewhere to avoid losing them if my computer goes belly up?
Yes, feel free to keep a personal copy of the pattern file on a thumb drive or on a CD. I like thumb drives, they have huge amounts of storage, you can add new files to it anytime you need to (I have one I keep all my purchased knitting pattern files on), and they're pretty cheap. If you copy the file for a friend, that is a copyright violation and you and your friend are stealing the pattern. The same copyright laws apply to the pattern files as would apply to a paper pattern you purchased at your LYS.

I want to buy some Pink Lemon Twist Patterns as well as some Georgina Bow Creations Patterns, can I combine them in one purchase?
Unfortunately, no. While I do have my mother's patterns on my blog, that is because she doesn't have a blog of her own to sell her patterns on. We are independent pattern designers and keep separate books. She lives in Colorado, I live in Virginia, so the logistics of combining patterns from both of us into one purchase would be difficult. We apologize for the inconvenience, but you'll need to make two separate transactions to get patterns from both of us.

I have more questions, how do I contact you?
The easiest way is to message us on Ravelry: I'm PinkLemon and Mom is GeorginaBow. If you aren't on Ravelry you can email us. If you click the "Add to Cart" button on one of our pattern pages the PayPal shopping cart will pop up. On it will be an email address (mine if you click the button on a Pink Lemon Twist pattern and my mother's if you click the button on a Georgina Bow Creations pattern). You don't have to complete the transaction, just get the email address and drop a note to whoever you need to.

If anyone has any other questions they'd like answered, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

Wabenschal Wednesday

You know how I said I would give Wabenschal updates on Fridays? Forget that. Here it is so far and it measures about a yard long (36 inches) unstretched so I'm figuring I'm somewhere around the halfway point, or so. The Wabenschal is not so scientific. It will tell me when I'm done. Every repeat worked adds about 2 inches to what will be the finished, blocked length and repeats are only 14 rows. (It's not opened up to it's full width in the above picture, it's actually much less pointy than it appears.)

This actually does work up very quickly when I work on it, but the key here is "when I work on it." I've been cranking out socks and cardis and the poor Wabenschal has just been neglected. I say this because I don't want anyone to be thinking, "Wow, I really liked that Wabenschal pattern, but it's taken the Pink Lemon 14 years to get to the halfway point. It must be really difficult and time consuming because she can knit a cardi in about 3 weeks and that's with knitting the body twice." Please don't write off the Wabenschal just because of how long I've been messing with it. It's totally my own fault for slacking off. Poor little Wabenschal!