Cry me a River

The River Shawl/Stole.  *Sigh*  What a rocky relationship we've had, she and I.  Let's recap:

Mid-August:  New Rowan comes out, and I fall in love with this stole even though not only have I not ever knit lace, I don't even WEAR lace - or, for that matter, mohair. Not kidding.  So I mostly just keep thinking it's cool, but try to ignore it....but I do start looking at laceweight yarn for the first time ever.  Just out of curiosity.  You understand, of course.

Two days later: Jody starts up a knit-along. I order some laceweight yarn.  Not because I'm going to knit this, no way. I don't wear lace, remember? I just want to play around with some laceweight yarn.  Turns out that I've never had any laceweight yarn, that there isn't any laceweight in my stash.  None.  Must have some laceweight. Must.Buy.Yarn. 

I can stop anytime I want, yes I can.

A week after that, the first yarn arrives. You know what happens next, right?  Right.  I immediately start to cast on for this thing.  I say "start", because it doesn't go very well. 

A week later, I'm in pretty good shape, but having some trouble.  Not only did I have to try every single type of needle I own before having to go out and buy brand new straight bamboo needles, I don't like the way it looks.  Ten or so rows in and I can't really discern the pattern, but I've been warned about this, so I forge ahead.

A week (and several repeats) later, and I have to frog the whole damned thing because, well, I'm still an idiot.  Charted lace & football?  Not so good together if you're a dumb ass.  Charted lace, football, AND Magners?  At a bar? An exceptionally bad idea.  But you already knew that, didn't you?

THREE weeks later:  TONS of people have finished their shawls, and they're all awesome.....and mine looks NOTHING like theirs.  I'm about a third of the way through, with maybe 4 or 5 repeats completed, but now, not only am I still really unhappy with the way it looks, when I stretch it out, I can STILL barely see the pattern.  I'm sad.  I assume that I've somehow screwed it up and that I'm just not cut out for lace knitting. The shawl goes into time out.  I shamelessly start to knit other things - like a lace scarf just to prove to myself that I CAN knit lace, nyah, nyah - and ignore it for a while.  Then, miraculously, while reading Jody's blog on the topic, I realize that she's gone down to a MUCH smaller needle (she's also using this same yarn) and hers looks fantastic!   So, yeah...riiiiiiip.  And THIS is what it looked like at the end of October.  Those are my size 9 rosewood needles, one of the few sets of straight needles I own.  Things were so promising this day, but it was simply not to be.  Again with the needles\yarn disagreement (too sticky) and River goes back into time out. 

Score:

Shawl: 4

Knitter: 0

And here we are today:

Yes, it is possible that we have been saved.  New Brittany's size 9's at Rhinebeck combined with the firm belief that one can never have too many active knitting projects have resurrected her.  I'm only a few of repeats in now, but I can already tell a HUGE difference.  There's actually a pattern here, not some random collection of ginormous holes connected by yarn.  It's VERY exciting!

Hooray!

Comments

[Teresa C]

I'm lovin' your lace knittin' perserverence. Go Knitter, Go?

[jody]

well i know it was a long journey but it's looking fabulous now. keep at it!

[Carole]

Lookin' good now. You'll be glad you stuck it out. Lace isn't hard you just have to pay attention a bit more.

[Jackie]

Wow - it looks fabulous! It's actually making me consider giving it a go myself, it's perfect for an office shawl..... which is what you were looking for, right?

[mamacate]

Yay! Press on, however painful. It sounds like you have a similar love/hate relationship with KSH. I am smitten with its softly lustrous silky beauty. But I have a deep and abiding loathing for its slippery, inelastic ways. It's like a bad relationship. And then I find it on sale and buy up the stock. In black no less. I should probably call Juno's therapist.

Alpaca cloud? Smart woman. But probably still gonna make you crazy. At least its not that crazy-making KSH...