September 14, 2012

• Swallowtail Shawl

  I had to admit defeat tonight. . . sigh. . . the Swallowtail Shawl is no more.  I started the shawl at the beginning of August, took a class to learn the difficult lace pattern and how to make nupps.  Nupps are when you knit 5 stitches into one stitch, sort of, to make a little bauble and add some depth to the pattern.  You have to pick up the 5 stitches by purling them together on the next row.  On a shawl where every row you knit is adding more stitches, you have lots of stitches on your needles as the shawl keeps getting bigger.  In the pattern I was doing, the nupps started towards the outside of the shawl, making them every 10 stitches for about 300 or so.  I was getting it, but for some reason, even though I counted and counted, throughout the rows, and at the end of every row, and by the time I got that far,  even putting in a lifeline every other row, I was making a mistake somewhere on a nupp and the whole pattern was off.  But the yarn I was using, while beautiful, caught on itself and stuck to itself, making quite a bit of pulling apart when taking it out.  I was spending more time taking it out down to the same lifeline.  Finally, tonight, the yarn started shredding and breaking at that row.  And I gave serious thought to whether I wanted to take it out several lifelines down, cut the yarn and attach a new piece.  I was not enjoying this project.  Once I got down to a lifeline, this yarn was very difficult to pick up by threading the needles back through the stitches, and I was feeling like the hours I spent working on it and taking it out and re-doing it were keeping me from working on projects that I love.

   

  I thought about just stopping in the middle of pulling it out this last time, putting it away, thinking about getting back to it again in the future.  But don't we all have unfinished projects hanging out in our sewing rooms that we started and never finished for some reason, tugging at the back of our minds, giving us no peace until we tried again?  And I didn't really want to try again on this one.  I didn't like it.  I am not even sure I would enjoy wearing something that I really didn't like making.

   

  So, I ditched it.  Gone.  And it is ok!  Because I don't think that we always have to finish every single thing we try.  Some projects are learning experiences where we have to see the benefit we got from the process.  What benefits did I get from the process of knitting this shawl?  I learned some new stitches and patterns in knitting.  I learned that I love to knit lace but if I see nupps in a pattern, I will most likely not attempt it.  Or, if I do ever want to attempt them again, I learned that I need to pick my yarn more carefully.  I chose this yarn for its color mostly.  I didn't look closely enough to see that it was delicate and would shred when stressed.  I learned that I need to look up my yarn and projects on Ravelry to see if others had bad experiences with it.  And in the process of taking the class and working on the project, I got to spend time with a dear friend and get to know some others better.

   

  So, there won't be any pictures of my Swallowtail Shawl!  I don't miss it at all!  In fact, I feel quite relieved and am looking forward to having time for another project.  And the next knitting project is one I have done before and love, and is very worthwhile - I am going to knit a prayer shawl for another dear friend who has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be having surgery very soon.

   

  • 11:58 pm
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