Here We Go Again...The Chinook Shawl...

One could imagine after the last shawl I did I would want to go a good long while before picking up another shawl.  Shawls are big, long, time consuming projects and those last few repeats are pretty much penance.  The cast off at the end seems to take an eternity.  One would think I'd be on to smaller, more manageable projects, like mittens for winter, socks, or hats.  Heaven knows I could always use a few more berets!  I'm addicted to those things.  It would only seem logical to take a break from long and tedious.

Yet here I am, once again diving into the shores of a shawl.  Right now I'm in the early stages, that new romance.  It's those brief, fast and furious knitting, those rows that fly off the needles with reckless abandon and the insatiable desire for nothing but that project.  Isn't that the way all new projects go, all romances for that matter? In the beginning it's all craziness and passion.  Then, over time the passion, shiny, and new fades, and then you're left with the long, hard slog for the duration of the relationship.  When everything is over you look back upon what you've done, and more often than not you're looking back in joy at the beauty of it all, and then take it with you into whatever you do next.

Well, here I am, fresh off the high from finishing the previous shawl and casting another one on.  It's like the success of having the first one come off the needles helped me forget about all the craziness that comes with the long wait and I'm just left with the shiny and new.

No, relationships aren't it at all.  It's pregnancy.  When you first find out you're pregnant, most women are overjoyed.  They're excited for their new life, and for the next few weeks they can do nothing but focus on that little creature inside of them.  Then as time goes on, the pregnancy starts to wear on you.  You're starting to feel uncomfortable and tired all the time.  Man, babies take forever to be born!  Then as you reach those last final days you're begging every moment for it to end.  Just come out already!  Meet the world!  Stop torturing your mama!  Then labor starts.  It's that long, hard slog, but the finish line is in sight.  Then the baby is there, and before long you're looking at your significant other thinking that was so worth it, and now you want to have another one.  You forget about how long and hard the pregnancy was, and how painful childbirth is.  All you see is that there's this precious baby and you want another one.

That's what shawl knitting is, but unlike having babies, with a shawl you can jump right back into one.  Very few people consider that they've already got two shawls in their closet.  Two are enough.  Unlike kids, you could have so many shawls that they're coming out your ears and they're not too much of a problem.  Well...maybe storing them...  Unlike kids you don't have to feed them or raise them.  They don't require much care.  This makes them perfectly ideal.  And, unlike kids, if you find you have to many, or absolutely want one that you can't justify having, you can always give it away!  Also, unlike with kids, you don't have to wonder what they're going to turn out like.  Most times you have a pattern and you just have to follow along.  The pattern comes with a picture of the end result, so you've got everything to know, with some minor possibilities for change here and there, exactly what the outcome should be.

So, here I am, sitting with my little basket of yarn, my previous shawl in my hand as I'm about to toss it on top of the basket.  It looked so pretty, that yarn.  It was so tempting.  How could I resist casting on?  It all just looked so irresistable there, so beautiful.  I couldn't help but touch it.  Once I had it in my hands I couldn't help but want to work with it.  It is, after all, a logical conclusion.  The soft yarn in my hands, I tell you, it was truly an impossibility to resist!

Into the basket went the shawl.  Out of the basket came the yarn.  I pulled out the correct needles and away I went.  The cast on was quick as ever and I was into the rows, listening to podcasts as I went.  It seemed easy enough.  I put it down for the night, determined that first thing the next morning I would pick it up and continue where I left off.  This shawl would be done in no time if I had my way!

That's when the trouble started.  I realized that my count was off.  All the other sections had five stitches.  Why did this one have four?  It took me a while to figure out exactly where the mistake had been made, but I did it!  Several rows back I forgot to yarn over and that's where all the trouble started!  At first I tried to pick up the stitch and work it through to the current working row.  I wanted to preserve my beautiful shawl!  Unfortunately, that just turned into even more of a mess of things.  Next I went at it, tinking back to try and keep the shawl together.  I realized it was going to take forever.  I had to tink back almost ten rows!

Defeated, I gave up.  I decided to rip it all out and start over again.  It was depressing, but I knew with all the yarn overs and all of that I wasn't a talented enough knitter to rip back and salvage it without a life-line, something I've never had the brains to use.

Thankfully, a miracle happened!  The yarn somehow naturally preserved the cast on and the row after it!  I was able to save a little bit of time after all!  There was one less step to catch back up.

I picked up the stitches and ran with it, this time slower and more carefully.  I counted everything as though I somehow thought the count was going to escape me.  It was all carefully, slowly, and methodically done.  As if I'm not a slow enough knitter in the first place, now I've got to deal with even slower knitting formed of paranoia that I'm going to screw it up again.

So, here I was, in love with my shawl again, enamored with my shawl again.  Again the stitches began to fly off my needles, at their turtle-slow pace, that is.  I'm well on my way.  The only question that remains is how long it's going to take me to finish this one.  I'm just glad it's on size 8 needles this time...and those are going to be quicker to knit with, and break much less easily.