The swap, concluded

So the deal with the CPAAG swap (the one I posted my yarn and other goodies for last night) was that when you received your package, you posted it on the swap thread, and then your swap partner bought you a pattern from your wishlist (and you had to have a wishlist in order to participate....and yeah, it's kind of miserable doing a swap when (a) you don't know the person you are sending to and (b) they give little input as to what they like)

Anyway. I have a BIG Ravelry wishlist, so hopefully that was easy for my sender.

And she chose a good one: Celestarium (that is the Twist Collective link rather than Ravelry; I'm still unclear how much non-ravelry members can access from the page).

This is a huge and complex looking (but probably looks harder than it is) shawl designed to show the night sky as viewed in the southern hemisphere.

I once joked that it was "Twilight Sparkle's Favorite Shawl" because when Twilight pushed Rarity to "upgrade" her gala dress, Twilight wanted all the constellations and stuff on it.

On this shawl, the "stars" are marked with yarn overs and beads. Yeah, this is going to be my first go at bead-knitting but unlike some projects the author specifies you only need string one bead; all the later ones are added as you go using a crochet hook (there's a technique for this).

And it's charted rather than written in words, which always works better for me - I tend to be very visual and I like charts; it's also easier for me to see if something's wonky without having to count about a million stitches.

I also think it's one that, given its simplicity between the sections, should be easy enough to pick up and put down, and I can always put a pencil mark on the printout of the chart noting where I left off. (I will have to be sure to be good about that)

The idea of counting out and stringing 360 beads (no more, no fewer) and then also having to move the beads down the yarn as I worked....that would be too big a barrier for me. But putting them on one-by-one should be totally doable.

I.....might start this next after I finish the two most-nearly-finished sweaters (Raven and Hagrid) and do it instead. Definitely going to look for a nice night-sky yarn when I go to Quixotic Fibers this coming weekend, and I'm going to see if they sell beads, too. (If they don't, I have a lead on a good place to order from).

And yes, you might ask: where would you wear this? (I don't often wear my shawls these days). But it's not so much the wearing as the making. I can't climb mountains these days (no time, no nearby mountains, and hip bursitis) but this is kind of like my version of that. And if I were ever, for some reason, to move to a bigger fancier house, I could see myself having one of the elaborate shawls framed in such a way it could go on a wall....