I've been working like a crazy person on the shawl for my mother. It's from Lace Style by Pam Allen and Ann Budd. I began it with the misguided idea I would get in done inside a month for my Mother for her birthday (which is the 1st of January). This did not happen. Then we moved and everything was upset. There was a period of time when I never wanted to touch the thing again. Finally I got to the place where my "reverse knitting" (which I like to call knitting backwards) was good enough that I could work the pattern without thinking. Then I got it done.
Mind you I reinvented the wheel when it came to reverse knitting. I just figured out how to do it when I couldn't stand to turn the thing anymore. Proudly I dropped in at my LYS and found out that, not only do others know how to do this, but it has a name. Sigh. Still feel good about the whole thing though.
So, then I blocked it.
It was only as I was pinning the thing out on the lawn, while my beloved four-year-old danced around and my lovely one-year-old tried to crawl all over the whole thing, that I discovered a little issue. It went something like this: I shouldn't have a tumbling block in here; where did that come from; how did I make that; oh "bummer". None of this was said out loud at least. There is one short row in there. I believe it came in somewhere in the "I know this so well I don't have to think about it anymore" stage. I do know that I took out one other short row after about six blocks of work. Ah, a learning process again.
Now I'm working on the fringe. I'm not going into the details, but it took three hours last night to do one side. On the other hand, it didn't turn out too bad.
I used the duplicate stitch method of working in the ends. (see On Your Way to the Masters: those pesky yarn tails by Arenda Hollday in Cast On from ?) Boy do they look nice. I've had rotten luck with ends so far and I'm happy to find something that is really invisible and looks like it will work. I'll let you know.
