The Blob That Ate the Desk Chair

Hey look – knitting!!

Yes, that blob is the Pacific Northwest shawl. It is actually a lot of fun to knit – although it would be helpful if I could be relied upon to count to seven.

You know, repeatedly.

It doesn’t help that my counting tends to go like this: “Knit one, two, three, no-you-may-not-have-a-cookie-right now, four, five, get-off-of-there-before-you-kill-yourself, twelve, fifteen, what-the-@*^&@-are-you-doing-now?!?! {set down knitting in mid-row, charge off to see what the @*^&@ they are doing, come back} uhhhhhhhh…{tink, tink, tink}…one, two…”

Anyway, I think it is coming along pretty darned well, and it’s a lot of fun to knit. Of course, it’s also one of those devious projects that starts with a casual, “Cast on three stitches…”

Well, actually, this one begins with “crochet 5 chains, knit through the loops on the bottom side…”

It’s not as confusing as it sounds. I’d never done it before, and I got it on the first try even though me + crochet hook = amusing disasters that are not humanly possible and yet we have them ON TAPE.

Anyway, this started with three little stitches and is working its way up to three hunnerd and sixty five – and then you do the shell border all the way around the sides.

I’ve got a ways to go, I think is my point here.

This Claudia silk is a pleasure to work with, too. It doesn’t split, is not excessively slippery (a little, but not excessively), and isn’t being too mean to my hands, either. Sometimes I find silk a little drying for me, but so far so good with this stuff.

As always when doing lace, I am suffering from disbelief on this project. I’m looking at it and saying, “Oh, man. This does not look like the picture…” and getting all worried that one little hole is bigger than the other little hole, and does that ‘seagull’ look crooked to you? It looks crooked. I think it’s crooked. Maybe I should rip out the last fifty-six rows, back to that seagull…”

It looked like a big old blob hanging over my chair. I kept trying to ‘stage’ it a little better, so that it looked more…well, like a frothy, delicate piece of lace, rather than a kind of purplish blob that had burbled up from under the desk to eat my chair.

It laughed at me. And also refused to look like anything but a blob. Well, fine. Be that way. Look like a blob, see if I care. Phooey.

I’m looking forward to the blocking. It always surprises me. Granted, I’m not a big lace knitter and haven’t had a lot of these experiences, but the way you can take a damp blob, stretch it out on the rack bed, let it dry, and then pick up a frothy, delicate piece of lace is one of the great miracles of knitting.

Besides. That moment when my husband walks into the bedroom and sees something stretched from one end to the other of our king sized bed, held in place with about fourteen thousand pins?

Priceless.