Friend or foe?

Dear Cynthia,

It was great to see you yesterday at the Spring mini-yarn-crawl. And, I'm pleased that we can tell everybody of our great restraint, and our lack of new yarn purchases. Out of control, us? Nope! However, perhaps it is also best if we refrain from revealing ALL of the details regarding the yarn store we found...

I started my shawl. And then I *started it again.* Repeat area between ** four times. Here is what I had to show for my efforts:If it looks like a mess of jumbled yarn to you, well then, you get the idea.

Then, I *started it again*. Repeat area between ** until it actually isn't falling off of the needles and is starting to look like it might work out. After an hour, it looked like this next photo, which you might notice is a little fuzzy. After working on this little bit for so long, I'd say the snapshot rather accurately depicts what my eyes were seeing and what my brain was perceiving.

I ended up going down one needle size (I'm using a size five circular). You might notice the little white thread running through the finished work. This is the first time I've ever used life lines in my knitting, and when I put one in after the 20th row, I thought to myself, "Boy, what a wimp. For this little bit of knitting, do I really need a life line?" Four rows later, I had my answer. Because, four rows later I had to take out part of a row, and I dropped a stitch during the process, and I'm not able to "read" my lace, so I had to rip it all back to the lifeline. Are there people who are able to reconstruct dropped stitches when they are making lace? In any case, the life line saved me from having to start over again. I'm going to put one in every 20th row. It's my only hope for sanity in this project. I'm so far undecided about whether or not I really like lace knitting. I'm determined to finish this shawl. There was a time just a few days ago when I thought I might try to make a lace shawl of a different pattern for my mom for Christmas, but now that seems a little optimistic. More thoughts on that as the project progresses... This will be a challenge for me!

In the meantime, here's the sock I'm working on when there are distractions and I am unable to work on the lace. I'm working on the heel flap. I love the tiny little stripes!

Thanks again for all of the duplicate magazines and for the books with knitting stories! I'm really enjoying them!

Warm regards,
Laura (aka YarnThrower)