Shuntbumping

Yesterday was our first Shuntbumping match of the season! I was so excited! But, it didn't work out very well.

Our pattern was to be released very early in the morning - 8 am, I believe. I had no intention of being awake that early on a Saturday, but I hoped that my opponent was a reasonably-minded person who would also be asleep. I think she was, but it didn't help.

It also didn't help that we wound up spending a good part of the day making cider. That was a lot of fun, but it meant I wasn't doing any knitting. I didn't get a chance to start until about 5:00 in the afternoon - so I checked the competition standings, saw my opponent hadn't posted yet, and decided to start.

And then started again. I wasn't happy with the fabric I was getting on the Size 7 needles, so I decided to step down. But then somehow it also seemed like a good idea to work a circular needle instead of dpns, which meant I had to scale up to the medium size in order to fit the needle. I'm afraid I wasn't really excited by the hat pattern, so I thought a bigger hat might be a more practical gift.

After I had picked my yellow and orange yarn, I realized I had candy corn colors. So I decided to add in some white, hoping that the large stripes would speed up my work.

Once I started knitting, I went as fast as I could. I only took two breaks - once for dinner, and once to get my homework done. I wish I'd been able to do the homework earlier.

Just before midnight, I finished the hat, photographed it, and rushed to post it. Only to discover that my noble opponent, Ginny Lockheart, beat me by 27 minutes. I'm sad to lose, and even sadder that I skipped dessert to knit, and still lost. But I'm glad that Ginny's an Arrow, so I'll be able to cheer her on in the next round!

And I have a hat. I'm not sure how happy I am about that, because it doesn't look really good on me, and the third round of decreases gives it an awfully funny-looking tip. But we're having fun trying to decide who really needs a candy corn hat, so perhaps it will come in perfectly handy sooner or later. And now I can get back to my regularly scheduled knitting - and to Quidditich! Arise, Arrows!