There has been frogging here.

Once upon a time,

Two years ago, I began a beautiful shawl.  I paid way more for the pattern than I have EVER paid for a single pattern, and I found the “perfect” yarn for my soon to be beautiful shawl.  I was so enamored of this shawl, that I forgave the errors found on the pattern that I’d paid more for than I had EVER paid for a pattern – these things happen.  I was in love.  I read the pattern over, I set myself up with my little lace chart reader, had the perfect lace needles and I began.

” Hmmmm….that can’t be right…” became my mantra.

I actually ended up making headway for a while if memory serves, found out how useful lifelines are, and mushed on.  And then I hit “Chart C.”  Chart C kicked my keester – over, and over and over again. The laceweight yarn I’d been using began to look a little felted and worn.   Each time I knit Chart C and then ripped it back to the lifeline – the yarn became a bit more bedraggled looking.  Finally – in disgust, it was over.  I gave up and tossed the beautiful shawl and it’s pattern into the depths of my knitting basket.  I thought about ripping it out but all that work and effort and I just could not bring myself to do it.  There was SOMETHING wrong with my stitch count, and for the life of me I could not find the mistake, but still…

I still remember this struggle, and YET – for some reason now, two years later, and a few lace shawls experience – I seem to think it’s time I tried it again.  From the beginning.

The Occasion:

“Ravelympics.”  Ravelympics coincides with the Winter Olympic games.  It is put on by Ravelry.com as kind of a copy-cat program of the Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Olympics.  Now, as a general rule, I have more sense than to sign up for a challenging knitting project that has a start date and a deadline.   I love watching everyone’s blogs as THEY do them, but I like to knit for the joy of it – not the “challenge” necessarily.

What changed my mind?

Oh you know, it’s usually a friend, or a group of them .  My  friend Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting has a “team” on Ravelry – and I decided to jump in…and get this blasted Peacock off my back…or on it.  It’s a shawl so I guess “on” would be a good thing.  I sure hope this time meets with success, or I may have to burn the most expensive single pattern I’ve EVER bought.

**”frogging” – Kniteze for when you rip out a project.  It all started because of the words “rip it” – “I guess I’ll just have to rip it out.” – sounding like how we say a frog sounds when it croaks “ribbit!” – so then it morphed into a verb called “frog” and then the term “frogging”.  Just in case anyone wondered.

Tagged as: peacock shawl, Ravelympics2010