Most of the work I did on making the Sunburst sample was while I was on a cruise with my grandmother back in October.  My paternal Grandmother loves traveling on cruises, but isn’t quite able to do it on her own.  So she gets her grandchildren to come with her, and we have a grand old time.  Grandma and I had decided on a cruise through the Panama Canal, from Florida to California.

Sunburst was the perfect project to do on a cruise.  Easily memorize-able, and with simple motifs, it was light enough to be on my lap as we sat outside and watched the water go by.

On one of the first nights we went to see a comedy show after dinner, and because we were nearly late getting there, the only seats were in the front.  Naturally we got singled out by the comedian, who saw that I was crocheting while he was performing.  After asking after us and what I was doing, he ragged on us a little before moving on.  From then on everyone one board the cruise knew me as “the young girl that knits/crochets.”  (It doesn’t help that I was dressed in vacation clothes, which make me look like I’m a teenager.)

It was a wonderful thing, actually, to be singled out, because it brought crafters out of the woodwork on the cruise.  So many knitters and crocheters made an effort to find me during the cruise, and we’d talk shop, knit or crochet, and admire each other’s projects.

Since Sunburst requires a set of circular knitting needles in addition to my hook, I took to sticking the circular knitting needle into my ponytail when I wasn’t using it.  It was the perfect place for it, because I wouldn’t forget to pick it up when I went to go somewhere else with my grandmother.  However, it did have the habit of making me look quite strange, with two pieces of wood connected by a plastic strand making a halo over my head.  Grandma liked to give me a hard time, teasing me about my “halo” or laughing when I got the needles caught on something because I forgot they were up there.

By the end of the cruise many of the people had watched the shawl form over the two weeks while I was there.  Many couldn’t quite imagine what it would look like when all the ends were woven in and it was blocked.

So, for any of you Holland America Cruisers out there who were aboard the Statendam with me, here’s the finished product.  I told you it would look better when it was done.