It wasn't long before I hit my next stand-still. I broke a needle again, and then I needed to wait for another set of replacements. Thankfully when I broke the next needle I still had one on hand. Knitting with thin needles when I'm stressed is apparently a bad idea. I hadn't even thought size 5 was all that thin! Apparently it really is and I just didn't know it. It didn't help that the infernal field of blue just didn't want to be finished. The first couple rows of the gray are riddled with problems as well, but at this point, I don't care! It's too much work to rip out and fix so I just made do and moved on. Who's going to notice anyway? I'm just going to be glad to get this project finished with! It's certainly taken me long enough, you know?
Today I was back to listening to Craft Lit while knitting away. Now that I'm on to the snow drifts portion I'm feeling pretty confident in my ability to finish this shawl some time this year, possibly even some time this season. I'm about half way through the chart and feeling pretty good about it. The pattern is a very simple feather and fan kind of thing and is working up pretty quickly, well, quickly if you consider exactly how far of a distance that is to knit across. I can knit a whole hour at this point and not make it end to end when I'm working in pattern! The straight knitting and purling between pattern rows seems like endless, mindless torture, but I know if I don't pay attention I'll end up doing something crazy with this very fine yarn and ruin it all. This shawl has got me focusing more than I have on any other project to date.
Of course, what happens next? The cable on the cable needle breaks! It broke right at the point where it's joined to a cable extender and I had to pick up a bunch of the dropped stitches. I'm actually glad I'm at the portion of the pattern I'm in or I think I might have lost my mind. At least during this section the stitches were easy enough to pick up. It won't be long before I'm mixing that pale gray with the midnight, then diving in to the icicle pattern for a brave and daring finish, so I have to remind myself I'm in the home stretch. This little setback can't hold me up forever. I know I have some other cables laying around somewhere!
In all of this I think I'm learning something. I know I try to paint every project as a lesson, but in this case it's not just about technique. I've had to have a lot of patience in this project. I've had to let go of my sense of perfectionism or I would never finish this whole thing. I doubt I'd be as far along as I am! I also had to accept the problems that occur when things go wrong, like needles and cables breaking. Now that I'm about twenty or so rows away from finishing, I'm feeling pretty good about this project. It's not exactly perfect, but with the amount of yarn and the number of hours put into it, I'm looking at it and thinking how it was definitely worth it. Once it's all blocked out that shawl is definitely going to be something I'm proud of.
