Game of Groans

A few weeks ago, my newest knitting buddy (and all round best pal) Karen pointed out a pattern on Ravelry that really interested me. The pattern was a Game of Thrones knitalong aiming to make a Daenerys-themed shawl. Now as a big fan of shawls, Dany, Game of Thrones and knitalongs the pattern really jumped out at me. We decided to make the pattern together, and I even dyed myself some yarn to go with the pattern. I chose gold, blue and turquoise, the colours that predominantly make me think of Dany - plus I'm not a huge fan of hot colours so wanted to avoid the fiery themed yarn the KAL chose.

The KAL started well enough. I adored how my yarn was knitting up, and the pattern was starting to look like beautiful dragon scales. I whizzed through clue 1 and eagerly awaited clue 2.

However, this is when it all started to go wrong. Clue 2 was incredibly confusingly written, and I had to rip out and reknit several times, each time ending up with extra stitches all over the place. It was becoming a chore to knit, and I decided that enough was enough and frogged the entire shawl.

I was a bit dubious when clue 3 was corrected three times in a short succession, but carried on trying to make clue 2 work. But when knitting becomes hard work rather than pleasurable it's time to reconsider.

I guess the problem with mystery knitalongs is that you don't know where the designer is taking the pattern so it's tough to make any adjustments, and of course the pattern is so new there hasn't been chance to iron out the errors.

So, I've picked myself up, felt sad about the loss of the shawl - because despite all of the issues it was a beautiful shawl. I know I will find the perfect project to replace this pattern and use my lovely themed yarn.