a long row to hoe

do you have a project you cling to even when it defies your grasp at every turn? are you doomed (like me) to play the role of sisyphus on your quest to follow your muse, pushing uphill for every single step that advances your vision, only to have it collapse into a heap of wishes just when you think you’ve conquered it?

this new shawl design has been like that for me. oh, i’m gonna get it—stop that laughing—i am.
but it may well be the death of me.

the bug first caught me about 18 months ago when i noticed a large lacy leaf stitch in the stitch dictionary. i marked it and said, hmm, i’m going to knit something with that motif some day. but do you think that stitch pattern would leave it at that??
nooo.
so last march i swatched it, thinking it might make a nice scarf.

and it would. but was i satisfied with that?? oh nooo.
the minute i stretched the swatch and pinned i started having visions of the shawl it would make.
oh it was grand! and easy! just look at it—it practically designs itself, doesn’t it?

i went all overboard and starting talking to kim about yarn for it and she got excited and then i got more excited, and well.

ha.

i finally got started swatching for the shawl in late july and immediately ran into issues. i had hoped to flip the pattern so it ran in the other direction since the shawl would be knit from the top down, but i didn’t like the new version.

then there is the issue of its size—it’s ginormous. by the time you increase to the point where even one repeat is visible, the chart would be three pages wide.

AND, all the decreases are at the center and all the YOs are way far away from them, so shaping it as a triangle is very challenging (thus, a pretty shoulder becomes ever more elusive). hmph.

i worked on the swatches nearly every day for several weeks, often spending hours to painstakingly come up with diddly-squat (actually, that’s one thing about prep work i don’t mind—but it does take time).

everything from edgings to what would go between the main motifs threw me for a loop. i eventually narrowed down the choices for each element, but in the process i tried so many things together that my head ached from keeping them all straight and deciding (not to mention that my stitch books now sport a thick fringe of post-its. which are staying put for the moment—just in case)

of course, by this time i was even more attached to the idea of pulling off this design—it’s like being totally in love with the bad boy at school; you just can’t see the flaws in your own thinking, for the well desire and fiery attraction he inspires in you (see swatch above for reference

i clawed my way through a number of experiments and finally, finally, came up with something i could use.

however.
i know there are going to be glitches along the way to work out (ha, like the size of the chart), and i’m on a bit of a timeline with it at this point. so i’m saving the faroese version to do later, and starting with the stole version (otherwise known as Plan B).

and i have swatches for that too.

(ok, just so you know, all that patterning isn’t really intended to be in the stole; it’s all just stuff i tried and then blocked to get an idea of the size and what might work).

but if you think having nice swatches for a straight rectangle shawl means we are done, you’re wrong. there just has to be a false start thrown in right?
can you believe it?? that piece i showed you the other day that i’d started? i thought i had it all figured out; i was so relieved to have it on the needles. thursday night i knit SIX inches of the (tall-sized) stole, then stopped and measured it to make sure i was on track (it takes at least that much depth to get an accurate measurement of the width because the motif distorts so strongly at the edge. which we love.)

i guess you know by now that i wasn’t. on track. sigh.
it was way too wide. darn . . . . now i had to scurry to figure out what could be taken out.

the motif falling between the large leaf motif was the most likely candidate; it was rather wider and more busy than i wanted, so i ditched it. i scoured my books for something narrow but pretty and decided on one that would work with everything else (at least, i sure hope it does). but of course, before that i had to rip out all my work from thursday.

i got up early friday and recommenced and now it’s back to where it was thursday night . . i’ve knit about six inches of fabric and the width is working much better. phew.
i even left it alone to go out last night (it was still the same size when i got back).

like i said, the faroese version will happen; i’m just going to do it AFTER the stole this time, so i can get my bearings, give myself mental-gymnastics time with the knitting in my hands (in case some clever design maneuver occurs to me), and relax about it.

after all, it still makes me cross my legs to stop the squirming when i look at it

and this morning i dragged out the dress form to play “draping the swatches” (which is a little like playing “bride” with a pillowcase).

some day it will look like that for real. until then, let me leave you with this