Well begun is half done...
It should be said, up front, that this is a lot of knitting. A lot of very good knitting--which couldn’t possibly be a bad thing, unless you have editors who want your book proposal or teenage boys who seem to think your only purpose in life is to supply them with food.
However, like most hefty projects, the payoff is most certainly there. This will be a statement piece, a showstopper, the kind of thing you wear to yarn shops or STITCHES knowing you’ll be stopped and admired. This is art--yes, it’s art that also keeps you warm, but I place equal value on each of those goals. I’m a raging extrovert. I’m a theater major, for crying out loud. I’m six feet tall. I enjoy being noticed.
Each square in this shawl showcases a different aran style, and Diana Kessler, Three Black Sheep owner and our fearless leader, evidently believes in “diving right in” because the first pattern is the Tree of Life. This is not “watching the kid play basketball” knitting. I could barely do it in front of boring television. Actually, I would have liked to have done it in a quiet monastery surrounded by monks chanting calming tones.
At first I yearned for a chart, because with row-by-row instructions and a photograph, I had only vague ideas of what I was stitching. Halfway into it, I didn’t crave the chart so much. I could guess where things were going, and I confess to enjoying the mystery of what each row would bring (and yes, some rows brought frustration).
I’m glad Diana put the tree right here on the end, because that means when I’m done and wearing it, I can thrust it in your face and exclaim “Admire my mad knitting skills!”
You know I will.
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