Darjeeling Shawl from Yarning for Ewe - Day 5

Getting edgy...

Now we switch one last time—changing directions, even—to finish off the edge.  It’s pretty now, in the lumpy, unfinished sort of way lace knitting always is before you block it.  The edges don’t have that crispness and the material hasn’t achieved the drape everyone loves in a lace shawl.

The trouble with end-to-end edges like this is that I invariably botch the first repeat of the pattern.  Because it is the first one, it’s right there on the point where I feel like everyone looks at a shawl.  What should be a pretty triangle looks like a dislocated thumb, sticking out round and ugly where it should come to a delicate little point.  I’m pretty sure I can block it to look better, but I’ll always know it’s there.  

Go ahead, tell me I should have worked my way back and started over.  I know that.  But by the time I figured out what the edging was supposed to look like, I was a couple of inches into it and it seemed like too much work.  One half of me rationalizes “No one’s going to notice a tiny detail like that” while the other half moans “Everyone’s going to stare at it!”

Lace perfection continues to be out of my reach.  And that’s okay.  I’m an eternal optimist (even if I’m not a Cubs fan—Chicagoans you know what I mean) and I always tell myself “I’ll get it next time.”

As for what you get next time?  You get to see the other half of all this edging.  It goes sl-ow-ly—two rows of fifteen or so stitches to every single one of the 208 stitches across the shawl.  That’s a lot of knitting, even if the “Polar Vortex” is keeping me indoors.