… It’s A Poncho!!!

So I set myself up for this. Promising to write about something online is some serious commitment, right? Alright, I’m writing, I’m writing.

Timeline, in chronological order.

I.’s birthday is in February, and my wonderful crafts compadre N. and I hatched the cunning plan to present our sweet friend I. with her very own poncho. (She had asked me if I’d make her one for money, a while back, and of course I declined that as ridiculous. You don’t do that among friends, right?) We kept it secret, and had a number of serious meetings about things like yarn, colors and patterns. We spent quite some time on Ravelry and on crafts blogs, and generally fussed with the idea until we settled down enough to order yarn just before Easter. We chose a type of yarn that wouldn’t be too heavy, and would wash well: a combination of merino and acrylic we found at an online store that stocked the colors we wanted – at a very reasonable price – ‚cause we wanted plenty.

We finally agreed on granny clusters, crocheted in a large square, to be finished off with horizontal rows at the shoulders. Initially we intended to make tassels for that funky Hippie look.

Each one of us did one half – N. did the back, I did the front. Of course there was furious Whatsapping of status quo photos, for the colors needed to match, right? We made good progress, although I had to unravel some rows because Mme la Chefesse de la Couleur wasn’t happy with the color scheme – but by mid July we had both gotten as far as this, and we liked it. We went on our individual summer vacations – N.’s half went to Fuerteventura, and mine came with me to Poland.

Then we ran into some problems with the white, had to order some more yarn. But we got back on track in September, sat down together and darned in all those ends, sigh.

Always so cumbersome, and inevitably boring. We found solace in a bottle of wonderful gin, though ;-). It’s a German brand, Monkey, from the Black Forest, who’d have thunk it, and it makes a wonderful cocktail with some tonic and lots of lemon. So, ends darned in, and in the end one of us needed to join the two parts.

We took turns with that. But in the end, the honor of making the neckline fell to me, because N.’s work always turns out somewhat looser than mine, and we needed that thing to be a neckline and not slip down over shoulders, which it initially did, making me a bit insane. So I fiddled, and I’ll admit there was some serious swearing and general grouchiness until I had figured out all I needed to do was to skip the chains between the clusters, and all was good. Check it out:

And finally, early this morning, we gave it away. Our sweet friend I. seemed really moved, and we were all 3 of us grinning like Cheshire cats as she proudly modeled it for us. It was cute how careful she was when she put it on, as if she couldn’t quite believe it wouldn’t come apart in her hands. We each had a yummy croissant and a delicious cup of coffee to celebrate, and N. and I congratulated ourselves on a job well done!

Phew, I’m always relieved when something I make turns out nicely. I’ll be finishing projects for the rest of this year, I think. There’s the Funky Blanket for my friend A. (almost done there! Yay!), the requested Mohair/silk sweater I still owe my friend E. (haven’t even started. Cumbersome knitting with that flimsy yarn and huge needles!), and a hat for my son’s sweet friend L. (Should be quick work) – enough to keep me busy, now that my latest book translation is already at the printer’s.

How about you? Are you busy with any gorgeous project this fall? Let’s see your work! Enjoy the fall, or Indian summer if you’re as lucky as we have been, here in our neck of the woods :-).