It’s been a while, so here she is. Alison. Poor, poor Alison. Regular readers might remember that I’ve been working on this poncho on and off since August of 2005, and it just refuses to be done. It’s getting little by little, bigger and WAY heavier, and each 50g ball is now producing slightly less than one inch of length. I’ve placed one of those tiny, open-ended stitch markers randomly at a point a couple of rows back, to indicate the last time I held it up to its recipient, and so I can have a point to measure from. I think I have 10 inches in length left to go. Yikes. I definitely don’t have enough of the original dye lot of green yarn (Cashmere Luxury Chunky, from AC Moore) so I’m going to have to add a thin white stripe before continuing with a different dye lot of the green, to break it up a bit. I still have hope that one day I will be able to photograph Alison herself wearing this beauty. I hope ponchos stay in style that long!
It’s gotten so large that it is no longer a take-along knitting project, but I have a couple of scarves at the ready for that. Still, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say I was neglecting it… it’s still a bit hard to knit on the projects I was working on before my dad died. There’s still a Santa hat in progress that I haven’t been able to bring myself to touch. But this poncho was his favorite; he asked about it every time I would visit and would always want to see it. He loved the braids and would say that maybe someday I should make him a braided Aran sweater. Maybe one day I will. An Aran for me. I’ll call it, “Dad.”
Someday soon I will post the pattern for Alison. Many people have actually written and asked me for it, and I am flattered! The main reason I haven’t posted it thus far is that I haven’t gotten to the bottom yet, and I don’t quite know what I’m going to do when I get there! To fringe or not to fringe, that is the question. Right now I am leaning more toward wanting to do a ribbed bottom to mirror the ribbing at the neck. But I also know that if I get slightly impatient, a fringe is a good way to “cheat” and make the poncho feel a little longer than it is. We’ll see when I get there what I feel like doing. Right now, it’s anybody’s guess.
I’m going to try to knit as much as I can of poor Alison this weekend. Maybe at the end of a couple of days there will be enough of a difference to post a new photo. (By the way, don’t put your money on that one, but I’m gonna try, nonetheless.)
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