A luminous winner (FO)

Random.org drew a number and the winner is:

picture from the MimeGap.com

Melissa! who used to be a mime when she was a teenager. Thank you to everyone who left a comment. It was fun discovering new things about you and I'm glad a few new people discovered my little space. Melissa send me your address at bigblueice(at)yahoo(dot)com and the Frog Legs will hop their way to their new home.

I am assuming the gift knit has made it to it's new recipient. So, my project while going to/from Russia was KiraK's Luminous Scarf (and rav). I don't know if you've found this to be true, but knitting has allowed me to discover that all my friends do not also choose green as their favorite color. While a friend was visiting two years ago, I discovered her favorite color is actually orange.

Orange. Green. Pretty much the same thing.

I surreptitiously purchased some orange Tantra silk yarn at ArtFibers' (now closed) San Francisco store, intending to make something for Christmas. Well, Christmas became her birthday, 2 years later.

The scarf pattern is easy-peasy, but the bead placement gives the pattern a more random feel. The beads also give a little weight to the scarf. I learned a couple lessons while making this scarf. First, I need to work on estimating length in lace patterns. I thought this scarf would be short of the suggested 75 inches and it ended up being 83 inches long.

I also had never worked with beads before. All the beads threaded on to the yarn were very heavy and seemed to be fraying the yarn. I had the bright idea of trying to unroll the yarn through the living room and "space" the beads. Not only was this time consuming, but ultimately a disaster. Because the beads kept the yarn from winding tightly. After two years getting jumbled around, I had an awful mess:

Two things about the above photo. One - that pile of yarn is after I'd already unraveled most of the roll over a three week period while knitting the scarf and, two - it's the best picture of the actual color of the scarf. When we took all the finished object pictures, it was very overcast and I couldn't get any pictures that showed the true color and caught the flash of beads.

So, while the knitting was quick, the unraveling added considerably to the project time. When you add in the fact that I knit 83 inches worth of scarf, it ended up being a little late.

One of the great things about living in the Bay Area is that there are so many talented designers in the area. I'm lucky that one of them is the designer of the scarf, Kira. The night I finished the scarf, she was at a local knit store and was a good sport and agreed to model the scarf with me.

maybe the dazzling beads will distract them from my unfortunate shirt positioning

Kira's very nice and was more than willing to share knitting tricks/skills during the evening. I haven't had a chance to take a class from her, but I don't think you'd be disappointed. She's offering a class on her awesome skirts soon.

Details:
Yarn: ArtFibers Tantra, Color 006
**Edited for proper yardage -- boohoo, I knit a lot less than I thought**
Yardage: 243
Size: 7.5 x 83 inches; 30.5 repeats
Beads: 214 Swarvoski cube beads, size 6
Modifications: I was on the plane to Korea when I realized I had US5 needles, instead of the recommended US7. Since it was a 14 hour flight, I went with it. Somehow, my scarf still ended up being 7.5 inches wide instead of the 5.5 I should have had.