Well, well, well…here we are again.
I haven't blogged in I don't know how long. But I find
myself with some time on my hands and some stuff to say about what is on my
needles. But first a quick catch up.
I am now living just outside Boston, working for a major
university in fundraising and development. I still miss NYC terribly, but am
starting to get settled in (it's only been about 4 years, no rush). I love my
job, but hate my commute. But at least I can knit on the bus in the morning…sometimes.
Life has thrown me some curve balls the past few years, including
major move (as stated above), my step father's death, the loss of a job that I
thought was the perfect fit for me, chronic pain, the passing of a once beloved
cat, and the end of friendships that I thought would be lifelong. Yet through
it all, I have fought to keep my head above water. One of the major reasons I
wanted to move from NYC was that I no longer wanted to just survive, I wanted
to LIVE. And I am finally starting to do just that.
But enough of that mushy, vague stuff. You want to know what
is on my needles, right?
A few years ago, I made a shawl using Jade 2-ply cashmere in
the perfect Claudine shade of pink. And while I really loved it, it wasn't
perfect. I adored the Frost Flowers pattern, but overall the shawl was too
narrow and too long. And every girl needs the perfect pink shawl. So…to the
frog pond it went. And now it's back on my needles
Luckily, I still had the chart that I made from the first
one. And although I didn't keep good notes on my stitch count, it was easy just
to count the repeats of the pattern to figure out how many stitches I originally
cast on.
My first shawl had 110 stitches on a size 4 needles. I
decided to almost doubled it and cast on 190 stitches for the redux. Keeping in
mind that the cashmere will stretch down and pull in, I think this will be
closer what I am hoping for.
I originally got the idea from a pin on Pinterest that lead
nowhere (I really hate that, don't you). But I consulted the fabulous Ms.
Walker's stitch dictionary and was able to find the instructions for frost
flowers (it wasn't that hard to figure out which volume it was in, since that
pattern is on the front cover), and reversed engineered the rest of the pattern
from there. I was about half way through with the first shawl that I found out
someone else on Ravely had already done this. Oh well, it was good brain
exercise.
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My goal for this shawl is to have the knitting finished by
the end of September when I am taking a trip across the pond to jolly old
England. Time is running short and I still have a lot of yarn left. According to
my calculations, I need to knit about 34 yards a day to get it down, which is
11 rows. Some days are more doable than others. I really hope I make it!
