Making a Whale Throat

9054 rows of knitting later, I finished knitting the throat grooves.

Thank god for row counters...

All eleven throat pieces

I used 16 skeins of wool to knit these pieces, which probably cover about one seventh of the total whale surface area, so at this point I'm quite certain that I currently do not have enough wool to complete the project. So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to order more wool and more dye.  This was definitely a frustrating realization to have to come to so late in the term. But, that's that, I guess. Whales. They're big.

Anyhow, back to the throat grooves.

Once I had them all knit, it was time to sew them together.

The sewing took about three hours. I didn't want to block the throat until after it had all been sewn together, so I had to really hold down the edges to keep them flat while I was sewing, meaning I could only really sew a few inches at a time.

By the end, the whole thing had gotten pretty heavy, and also, incredibly warm while it was lying in my lap.

So here it is, all sewn together, before I blocked it:

And the biggest table for blocking was luckily exactly twelve feet long, so the knitting fit on it perfectly:

I only wanted to lightly block it, so I pinned it out while it was dry, and then sprayed it with water to just get the knitting slightly damp.

I let it dry overnight before taking the pins out this morning. It turned out great!