My Achilles

After feeling the triumph of finishing a big knitting project, I of course wanted to jump right in to the next one. I started making my Christmas list for this year of hand knits for friends and family, including a couple of requests (a mustached facewarmer for a coworker, another Elijah for a new family member arriving in February, some mittens for a photography friend). But something was still nagging me at the back of my mind.
Something to do with sweaters. And Christmas.
Something that's been haunting me, watching, waiting in the corner with other half-finished projects that I've put in time out.
The ultimate project.The Dale.
This was supposed to be my Dad's Christmas present not for this last Christmas, but the Christmas before that. I started it November 11th, 2008, naively believing that I could easily finish this mammoth of a project in a month and a half of hard knitting.
I was obviously out of my mind at the time. Or drank too much coffee when this decision was made.
Fast forward to now. I pulled the Dale from the time-out box to assess what needed to be done, and found what stopped me. The body is too big to really carry around, and it's deep in intricate colorwork, which means concentration is required (no class or bus knitting). Luckily, the colorwork section is close to half way done, so really I don't have a huge amount left to go (in relation to the body as a whole). On the first arm, I'm up to where the colorwork begins, as well as the increase in the arm. I have to find the halfway point on the arm, count out the stitches from there and start the colorwork- a little more portable, but I have to first do math, then begin busy pay-attention colorwork- again, not conducive to my current lifestyle.
I'm thinking the best thing to do for now would be to start on the second arm, that way I can carry it around knitting the part I don't really have to think about, and when I have time between writing my thesis paper and lesson plans I can work on the colorwork bits for the body. It'd be nice to get one big part of this project done soon- in the words of Bill Murray, "Baby Steps".
After being in hiding for so long, it's time to get this project out and slowly but surely start chipping away. Don't worry- I'll be finishing my Vivian sweater first, because that's two yokes and a hood away from being done (plus my KAL buddy is finished with hers already- oops), but it's time that this monster get out from under my bed, get finished, and make its way to the rightful owner.
My Dad is going to be happy about this. :)(Above picture are some lovely lilies that my guy got for me- I love the colors!)