I put in a good, long day at work today. It was the kind of effort that I feel deserves a reward. My reward: an evening completely off, to do exactly what I want to do, with no expectations for accomplishment. I started by making french fries (the baked kind, Bug) and a salad with mixed greens, arugula (my favourite green), blue cheese and dried cranberries. I used to think that you had to eat fries with burgers or fried fish, but I have since come to think that if I just want a salad and fries, that's okay too. R is out on a personal-time night (we do this sort of thing), so I didn't have to share my fries.Next, meditation. Meditation, which I usually do at the beginning of the day, is qualitatively different in the evening. Of course, I lit candles. During the meditation, every effort to clear my mind was thwarted by a drift towards the idea of starting a new lace knitting project. I want to knit a shawl with the pure alpaca that I bought from elann.com awhile back. I did the recommended meditation thing, which is bring my mind gently back to nothingness, but it consistently wandered back to the shawl. So when the timer finally went off (finally!), I hauled out the pattern (elann's flower petal shawl), the yarn, and the needles, and set to work.
I have started this shawl several times already. It is very simple (see the photo; it's from the elann.com website). The pattern says it's a great first lace project. But for some reason I can't get beyond the first twenty rows. Tonight, I actually had the wrong number of stitches by the end of Row 11. The thing with lace pattern repeats is that you only find your mistake at the END of a row, when you've got the wrong number of stitches for the final repeat. It's also really hard to un-do lace rows. This particular shawl has 146 rows, and then another 22 rows of "fishtail points." And I cannot get past Row 11. I have ripped it all out and am back to empty needles. If I try again, it will be my fourth attempt. Give me cables, give me intarsia, I could probably even pull off fair isle if I liked it, but lace? Will I ever be able to knit lace?
5 comments:
That shawl is gorgeous, and I'm sure you'll get the hang of it! I love that you and R have personal time nights. B and I call that "alone time". What does R do with his nights out? Just curious. :)
I actually tried again and made it to row 14, no mistakes.
He usually walks downtown, grabs a bite, and goes to see whatever happens to be playing at our local independent movie house. We make a point of getting some personal time every now and then, but as he reminded me on his way out last night, he doesn't want to do it ALL the time!
If anyone can do it, I believe you can. I mean that
Repeater, you are too KIND!
YES!! You will be able to do it. Just keep knitting. And writing.
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