Knit Sisters

The faithful and astute among you, dear readers, have no doubt noticed my absence, once again, from the blog for a week.  Once again I left my dear sister holding the blog bag.  Thanks, Ellen, for holding down the fort.  Time Out of Mind is looking magnificent indeed.

I will not bore you all with the details of my family travails and crises.  Suffice it to say that it has been a hard, hard winter, capping off a hard year.  Let us hope that spring will bring us all fresh promise and happiness.

And, moving on, my progress on the Handsome Triangle shawl.

I really am almost done with it!  I have only one full pattern repeat to finish, and then the somewhat daunting task of knitting the ruffle, involving as it does an exponential rate of increase and ever-lengthening rows.  But not that many rows!  There is light at the end of this particular lacy tunnel.

                                         A detail.

Of course, these photos, like the shawl itself at this point, reveal only a hint of the shawl’s true personality–just a promise of what is to come.  That will only be achieved by a proper and ruthless blocking.  Hard, but necessary.  Sort of the knitting equivalent of tough love. 

I think there’s a metaphor there somewhere:  about living along, following the pattern as best you can, and having faith that someday, at some time, you’ll be able to do the hard but necessary work of unfurling your life.  Stretching it ruthlessly out to reveal its true beauty.  Trusting that what you’ve been working at, at times so laboriously and with little joy, will pay off in the end.  Hoping that the people who love and support you will be moved to remark upon its loveliness–hoping that you yourself will be able to wear it with pride and say, “I made it myself.”

I can’t wait.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Handsome is as handsome does. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.