It all began with the cast-on. Things were going well. I knit through my first six rows like they were nothing. Things got a little hazy on the seventh row. I needed to knit across all three stitches and then pick up and knit three more down the side and then again down the cast-on edge. Picking up stitches is generally a messy process for me. The stitches picked up are never as pretty as the rest of the stitches. I should have known then that you would be such a challenge, but I didn't. I didn't anticipate having near any problems at all! I'm a good knitter, and though I'm still new in the grand scheme of things, I find myself flying through projects, always looking for something harder, always looking for a challenge. I think I over-estimated my readiness for a challenge.
When I first saw your picture staring at me from the Knit Picks website, I thought to myself, "Now there's a lovely shawl! You were gorgeous! You were everything I wanted. The colors were delightful. The drape over the model was stunning. I could already see you wrapped around me, keeping me warm on a cool night. I'll be perfectly honest, a shawl isn't of much use in Texas weather. If it's cool enough to put something on, you actually throw on a layer. A shawl won't likely do much. This isn't New England, where those first cool nights of the year are perfectly met with a little something to wrap around you. Texas is too fickle for that. However, in the anticipation of saving money on our electricity, I know the heat will be low in the house, unbearably low for someone who can't hold on to their own warmth like me. While I have socks to combat my heat seeking feet, there's nothing to keep the rest of me snug. A shawl might just prove to be practical!
The day the box arrived, I darted around the house like a mad woman, looking for a knife, scissors, anything to get me through that tape! Upon finding it, I tore into the box, not like a child on Christmas (that might risk damaging the contents), but delicately, carefully, and as fast as I could possibly manage. The packing list, of course, was on top. It was tossed carelessly aside. If everything was there, then why did I care about the packing slip? I'd know if it was all there. I was anticipating it every day from the moment I knew you were on your way. First were the Zephyr Acrylic Needle Tips. I will admit, I did take pause at these to pull them out, bend them a few times, see if they were everything the advertising video promised. I know it distracted me from your glory, but I'm not about to lie. I know you saw I was distracted. How could you not? Then out came the needle cables, tossed aside with the needle tips as if they were no longer important. They couldn't be, because there you were! I pulled you out, and my expression changed instantly. I'm sure it was so dramatic you could have seen it miles away.
I'm not going to say I was entirely unhappy. Let's just say I was a little disappointed. The photos on the web were so incredibly enticing. The blend between them was just so perfect. It was everything a girl could want, especially one such as myself that adores fall colors so. Seeing the cover of the kit in person, I wasn't so inspired. The green was a garish clash from the rest of the colors, completely out of place. The green and orange blend looked atrocious, in my eyes. I didn't know what I was thinking. It just wasn't me. Perhaps I could fold the shawl over just so to hide that far-to-bright green. The blue, black, and gray didn't seem to appeal either. It just clashed! I feared it was awful! Then again, I had plenty of friends who would adore a hand-knit shawl, and I know some of my friends would adore your colors. I took a passing glance at the yarn bundled in back, but didn't really give it a proper look, knowing that green would be in there, and that blue. Oh well... Back in the box you went. Sadly, I didn't have the time to look at you then, especially if I wasn't thrilled. There were things I needed to get done. Besides, I couldn't take you out and knit you. I needed a ball winder before I could do that. I wasn't about to wind all those balls by hand! I'd be insane to do that! That's a lot of yarn!
It was a good long while before I could take you out again. You were misplaced during the move by my husband, who clearly didn't understand your value. It took him forever to pull you out again. Besides, I couldn't work on you! I didn't have a ball winder! When he did find you, it was the same excuse, and that I needed to finish the Clapotis first. I couldn't possibly start another project yet! At least I did you one small justice. I looked you over and took a better look. Maybe the yarn wasn't so bad after all. Still, I didn't want to open the bag and spill everything out. That could be a disaster. I'd do it another day.
Today I was planning to go to the yarn shop. I needed to pick up some more wool for longies. It was as good of an excuse as any. I had finished my Clapotis. I had started knitting a pair of longies, but I know how I am. They wouldn't take me long. I'd be done and out of things to work with in no time. I'm sure you already know how I feel about socks right now. I'm just not in the mood to knit them! Besides, I can't find the pattern book and eight million other excuses. I have to apologize. I'm horrible about all the excuses. It's not that I don't want to knit all my fantastic projects, it's just that the timing needs to be right. I want to give each project my full attention, and I can't do that if my mind is wrapped up in something else entirely. No, today was not a good day for socks, so I grabbed you up instead and off we went.
While I did buy more yarn and balled that up first, you did get wound into your own neat balls, all eight skeins. One after another was done, though I was beginning to think I'd never stop turning that crank. I considered leaving the rest for later, but no, that wouldn't be fair to either of us. I know myself well enough to know that I would forget to wind the next ball until I needed it, and, with no ball winder on hand for immediate satisfaction, I would put you aside and get lost on something else, taking months to finally get the next skein wound. No, I had to do it all. Besides, seeing all your colors laid out on the table before me, I realized just how lovely you were. That green was more of a beautiful forest color. The black was really more of a midnight blue. The bright blue I hated so much before was darker than I imagined, and the perfect compliment to the purple and midnight it shared it's borders with. The transition would be amazing! The gray still seemed a bit off, but that's what made it's elegance stand out so incredibly much! The fall leaf colors were deep and rustic, not as brilliantly bright as I had seemed to get it in my head. You really were everything I wanted in a shawl! I was only too happy to get you started. Unfortunately, in the middle of the day when I knew I'd have to run soon was hardly the time to dedicate, so I waited until I was home. I would have the time to focus on you then. Besides, I wanted a picture of all your lovely yarn before the project started for my Ravelry page. Who could blame me? It was perfect!
Being a smart little knitter (read that as "having learned from my past mistakes), I read through the pattern carefully. I didn't want any surprises. It's actually a good thing I didn't decide to hand wind the balls of yarn because I would have been in quite the sorry state. I didn't anticipate needing two strands of yarn to knit with, just the one. As you can well imagine, if I had just wound your average ball, knitting with two strands would have been impossible, unless I'd made a second ball. I never hand-wind center pull these days. It's just too challenging! With that happy thought of doing the right thing by waiting in mind, I continued on. I made sure not to miss a single detail. I even read over the abbreviations, even though I was certain I could figure them all out with a little logic. I read over the charts. Everything looked as it should be.
At this I was off to a roaring start! Well, perhaps a turtle's pace would be a better description. I cast on four different times just to figure out whether I would work in the tail from the start or leave it to weave in later. I finally decided on leaving it, but in hindsight I have to wonder if I made the wrong choice. Perhaps picking up stitches would have been easier if I had worked the ends in. However, I think I may have made the right choice. Picking up and knitting the stitches was a nightmare. I couldn't figure out if I was actually supposed to knit each stitch as I picked it up, but that's what I did. Because of your loose and unstructured nature at that point, I had a miserable time discerning where each picked up stitch should come from. Where did the selvage end? Where did the cast-on edge begin? I made do (perhaps a little sloppier than I would have liked) and got on to the good stuff.
From here it was smooth sailing! That's right, I cruised through the first twelve rows like they were nothing! Of course, they were pretty much just knitting, so it wasn't to bad, a couple yarn overs tossed in to create expansion and the right shape. This was all cake. I had built up quite the confidence, but that's when you got tricky. I guess you thought I needed a bigger challenge early on, you know, to prepare me for the worse stuff to come later. I had already anticipated you would do this. I was being extra careful with each stitch, as I've never worked with two strands together as one before. I thought I was doing alright, until the first row of the pattern took a giant bite out of my pride! Boy did that one hurt!
From here on out, it was problems. First it was my stitch count being off. I couldn't figure out where I was going wrong. I knit from the third marker on two or three times, but it always ended up the same. Apparently I was missing a stitch? I counted. I calculated. I did everything I could manage. Finally, frustrated, I tinked back the other side to see if I could figure out where I'd gone wrong on this half, and right on the one before. I don't know how I managed it, nor what I was doing wrong before, but this time you went by flawlessly! I'll admit, I my confidence was shake, but not yet shot. I know these mistakes happen. I notice them all the time. When I go back and try to fix them, they somehow disappear, as though they never existed and I was really just crazy the whole time. I'm sadly used to it by now.
Unfortunately, that was not the last of the rocky section. I managed to make it through row one of the chart with no further incident! Now it was on to row two, and that is where disaster struck! I knit up the rows. At first, I was reading the rows entirely wrong. I was knitting where I should purl, purling where I should knit. I thankfully caught on before I got too far, but it was frustrating and embarrassing, even if no one was here to see but my rabbit.
I sorted that out, then realized I was reading row two from right to left, just like I'd read the previous chart, blissfully ignorant that it doesn't work that way! I knit through almost the entire chart across this way before I realized that I was doing it wrong. Row two was supposed to be read left to right! That could make sense of a good deal! I tinked back again, this time only the part that needed to be altered, did it right, and once again moved on.
One would imagine that I would be the observant type. When I see things line up on the chart, they should also line up in the knitting, right? It should all be stacked up just the way it should, and it would all look spectacular! Well, I didn't take note of that small detail. If I did, I think I would have found my problem sooner. It may have just stopped me from going so insane! I counted the blocks on the chart, then counted my stitches for the section. I expected it all to match, but frustratingly, it didn't. Of course it didn't! That would make my life easier. I read the chart again, seeing two yarn overs and only one decrease for the row below, yet both the sections were the same size. I wanted to yell at that yarn over instruction. Clearly it was the problem. If it weren't for that one extra yarn over, the whole thing would line up perfectly! (I'm not going to mention that I should have known this would be impossible as the count was off by two, not one.) Then I realized I just needed to add something somewhere, maybe another block to each end of the chart so it would match the one above! That would be perfect!
Now, my brain cells finally did do their job on this one. As much as I could anticipate likely changes to the pattern, I somehow thought I might want to check into the problem first. Perhaps this wasn't as easy of a fix as I thought it would be. Everything else has been a disaster thus far. Maybe I was doing something wrong. I would go see if they had an errata!
Well, I did, and the company did. It seemed my instincts were right on adding the extra box. The chart was simply published wrong, and the correct chart was online. Saving myself a good deal of aggravation, I undid the mistake and corrected it. I was finally feeling back on track.
So, what did I learn in all of this? I could have prevented the whole problem by checking for an errata before I even considered picking up the needles to knit. If I had, this problem could have been avoided. It would have been one less frustration from the start.
Lesson learned, always check for an errata. If I find a problem, see if anyone else has had the same, or write the designer if there is none. All of this could have been avoided if I had.
I love you, my soon-to-be beautiful shawl. I can't wait to have you finished. I know I scorned you, neglecting you for other things, but I promise, I'm always going to come back to you until you're done. After that, you join my wardrobe as "my favorite shawl". That being said, please, no more problems! I'm starting to think I'm allergic to lace!
Oh, and before I forget, lesson learned on the donuts too. No powdered sugar will so much as enter the room when you're in the room, and I'll be smart enough to wash my hands before touching you after eating those infernal powdered things! I didn't mean to get sugar on you, but I assure you, were it not for me writing it now, no one would be any the wiser...
