Two years ago, nearly, I started working on this shawl. It was a beautiful shawl. I wanted to have it ready for the maypole celebration in the spring. It was exactly the right pattern. I purchased beautiful yarn that I adored. I was ready to go. This was going to be the perfect shawl ever, or so I thought. If only I'd known what I was in for! Maybe I never would have started at all.
The shawl started off simple enough. There were a few rough patches, but once I got into the swing of things, I was flying. The pattern was easy to read and it was coming together beautifully. I was thrilled. The small images were starting to come out and I couldn't wait to be done. That's when my stitches were off on the count. I couldn't figure out where I'd lost count and I wasn't about to tink back and find where it was wrong to fix it, so I started over. I was sure this time I would get it right.
Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. Nearly ten times I frogged this shawl and started over due to the count being off. I could have just tossed in an increase to correct the count and be done with it, but that would have been too easy. Whether or not anyone else noticed, I would know. It would be staring me in the face every time I looked at it. It wasn't that the pattern was wrong because it would have shown up in all the repeats and always on the same row. This was the chaotic missed stitch that seemed to like to jump in at unexpected times, which is pretty daunting when you're working across 200 stitches or more in each row! Yet even though this shawl was laughing at me (I swear, I could hear it!), I soldiered on. I was determined to finish and wear this thing to the may pole.
Wouldn't it figure that another stumbling block would get in my way. The interchangeable needles I had used for this project seemed to have a problem with the 8 gauge tips. The wooden needle kept falling off of the metal part that screws into the connecting cable. Try as I might, it just kept falling apart. Worse still, it would always fall apart in the middle of a row, making me drop a massive amount of stitches and have to struggle to pick them all up. As if it wasn't hard enough to keep the count correct before, now I had to contend with picking up a bunch of dropped stitches! This was just too much. I tossed the yarn and shawl, needles and all, into a bag and shoved it in my closet. I would come back to it eventually.
I did come back to it eventually. It had been stuffed in the closet, and in this house, the closet is just where you stuff anything you don't want to deal with. I uncovered it just before Christmas when I tried to clean out the closet and get the house in order. Some people say it was that whole pregnancy nesting thing. In truth, I just got sick of not being able to find anything and everyone complaining that my house was a bit chaotic. The bag was unearthed and I pulled out the yarn, thinking I should order new tips and start the project again.
Out came the bag and I dumped it out, spilling yarn and shawl on the floor. The lavender yarn formed a puddle on the linoleum floor, but something clicked against the ground and skittered away. I gave the yarn an inquisitive look, but ignored it. In my house, the chances of something else ending up in the bag of yarn are pretty great. Anyone with kids would understand. I picked up the piece of shawl to see if it was salvageable. As I was investigating, I noticed something was wrong. The needles were broken again. The interchangeable had popped out, reminding me, once again, why I dropped the project. I looked around the ground to find the piece that had run off. Perhaps I could glue it. Perhaps there was some way to make it work. Maybe I could just order a new one and be done with it. I was determined to finish. That's when I saw it, laying on the floor almost under the couch, my rogue needle.
When I picked it up, I was filled with sadness. This needle definitely could not be salvaged. Perhaps something heavy was stacked on top of it, because it had been broken in two! It was traumatic, heart-breaking, and a reminder why my house and wood needles do not make fast friends. With a saddened sigh, I resolved to buy a different kind of needle next time. Maybe it would be best to stick to metal. I put the project back in it's bag, cable, broken needle, and all, and went about my day. I'd pick it up later when the sight disheartened me less.
A good six months and two moves later, I've realized I had just the needles for the job all along in my knitting box! Why hadn't I thought of that? I pulled the needles out for a friend when I started teaching her to knit. She uses them all the time now, but I was certain I could get them back long enough to finish the shawl. With new excitement, I began to look for the pattern, which was long gone. Given it was a free pattern, I decided to hop online and print out a new copy. That's when things got bad.
Once on the web I went back through Ravelry to find the pattern. The pattern came up right away and I clicked on it to follow the link to the actual pattern. I was excited, but my heart broke just slightly when I saw the disclaimer on the bottom of the pattern stating it was taken down and replaced by a new pattern in fingering weight. I wanted to cry!
Then I started thinking, perhaps I could modify the fingering weight pattern. I could use that to finish my shawl and all would be good. I searched and searched for the pattern, but I wasn't able to find it. It was just gone, spit off into the void. Even the re-write of the pattern on Ravelry lead to nowhere as that pattern seems to have been discontinued as well. I just can't win.
So now I've learned my lesson. From now on I'll print up a copy of the pattern and keep it with the project at all times. You never know when it might be gone for good. And as much as I love some of the patterns from that site's free pattern listing, I'm not sure if I'll ever trust them again. To save myself heartbreak, if I do end up knitting one of their shawls, then that's wonderful. If not, well, I won't get too attached. I'd rather not suffer the heartbreak of having it gone before I finish and having to start over from scratch yet again.
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