Congratulate me! I did not poke my eyes out!

I've been meaning to learn to knit for many many moons. This year I resolved to actually do it. I probably wouldn't have stuck with it very well except my friend Katie dared me to give up not-knitting at Stitch and Bitch for Lent. I'm not sure that's the kind of thing Jesus or the Catholic Church would have in mind, but I stuck with it. And just as Easter Sunday was winding down:
Yayayay! I did it!

To be fair, that shrug is just...awful. I mean, the pattern is cute as hell, and I actually ended up really liking the yarn I used for it. But. There are all kinds of uneven stitches, yarn overs in the wrong places or extra yarn overs or shifted yarn overs, increases and decreases randomly (and all accidentally) placed, etc etc. As one might expect from one's very very first knitted project.

But I'm really proud that I finished it! I'm also really proud that I did not, as I had threatened so frequently, poke my eyes out with my size 11 needles.

This project, if nothing else, will always be a souvenir of SnB to me. Like a patchwork quilt. Gwen taught me the long-tail cast-on, Katie taught me how to actually make a knit stitch (I was doing it wrong), Elspeth taught me how to tink back, Kelly (who I barely knew at the time) taught me how to yarnover, Tanya (who I also barely knew at the time) donated stitch markers, Beth helped me learn how to bind off. Those are just the specific examples. Basically every person in this group that I love so much is somewhere in that (tiny, misshapen) shrug of mine, so for that reason alone I will always treasure it.