Happy Birthday, Mom!

My mom celebrated her birthday on Sunday, and though she probably hasn't received her gift quite yet, she's already seen the pictures I'm including here.

On a close inspection of my face, it appears
that I must be about to say something terribly profound.
Too bad you'll never know what it is...

The shawl that I made is from a super-easy pattern (CO 36, knit one row, increase second stitch of every subsequent row, BO, weave in ends, and voilá!) But the yarn, OH that yarn. So pretty, so tempting, with its tasty colors/flavors (raspberry mocha is the one I chose for my mom). On the size 15 needles, however, the bubbly rayon bouclé that looks so enticing dangling from the yarn store rack rapidly became the stuff of nightmares. It took almost two months to create this supposedly "simple" pattern, as I started and stopped and ripped and shouted my way through the first 20 rows.

"Oh no," I'd think, "did I remember to increase this row?" Well... since my original 36 stitches have now increased to over 50, but also since I haven't been counting and it's impossible to count rows with this yarn, I'll guess, "no," and go ahead and increase riiiiiight now.

Ring, ring. "Hello," I answer the phone, holding my knitting less-than-perfectly-carefully in my other hand, watching in horror as the giant stitches of bubbly yarn slipped off the needle before my helpless eyes. Where did they go? Lost forever! Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!!! Over and again I dropped these ridiculous stitches. I once was just sitting and knitting with Mel when I glanced in her direction to laugh and then looked back: at 3 dropped stitches.

Suffice to say, by row 112 (or so), I had learned to find those pesky fallen friends and wind them all the way back up to my live row. At one point a little one had slithered its way down 6 rows, but with my now-well-trained eyes, I caught the little bugger and twisted him back up to where he belonged. I can barely express my self-satisfaction at that point. Ha-HA!

Melanie, again, proved a lifesaver. Apparently, this skein was two smaller skeins knotted together, which, in my infinite observational skills, I failed to notice until about 1/3 of the way through the row in which the knot should appear. In her infinite wisdom and patience, Mel helped me go backwards through the tangled jungle of rayon insanity and start the second 1/2 of the skein at the edge. How she accomplished it, I'll never know, since I still can't see the RS or WS of the knitting with this stuff.

I learned quite a bit on this super-easy pattern, of which the quality of perserverance as it applies to knitting is not the least. I also learned to beware of rayon bouclé. Its dangers sneak up and nip, nip, nip, until the "little project" turns into a marathon. The point, however, is that I have accomplished my general knitting goal, even with something this seemingly straightforward, which is to learn something new from every piece that I create. Thanks, Mom, for that, even though you had no idea you were still learnin' me sumthin'.

Happy Birthday, Mom!
I hope you get to wear it somewhere delightful!