Been knitting

Usually I'm not so single-minded; I tend to flit about from project to project, but this just seized me. I got the pattern (Wing of The Moth by Anne Hanson) and the yarn (Miss Babs laceweight, I can't remember the colorway) at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Festival in late June and I was really excited about it. So I started telling myself I would cast on as soon as I wrapped up some other loose projects … and then I said to myself, Self, this is stupid. If you're excited about knitting a lace shawl, then knit a lace shawl.
Couple weeks later, on vacation with the Fool and Jamie, I cast on and knit like a madwoman for about a month. I had a couple setbacks. On the way home from vacation, driving from Pittsburgh to Chicago, the middle of the center pull ball leapt out and created a string of smaller balls of yarn all making an awful mess, so I rewound it by hand. it took me from Pittsburgh to Ohio and I was mad for most of that. (Note to self: Wind laceweight by hand, moron, not on the ballwinder. How often does this happen? Every time I knit with laceweight, that's how often.)
Then, about a week ago, I was knitting with a friend at the cafe, an indoor playground/ coffeehouse run by a local church. I like to take Jamie there when he's getting in my hair, because sometimes he gets out of my hair long enough for me to think or knit or enjoy not being touched.
But this was not the case, and I screwed up the lace pattern, and my friend looked at it and said "I can't see a thing; I don't know what you're talking about, you made a mistake."
I was already a row and a half past it and fast approaching the end of my patience anyway, and I knit on … only to discover 11 rows later that the mistake turned out to be significant in terms of ruining my life later.
(Note to self: Like it said in that blog post you read recently, tackle stuff when it comes up, rather than putting it on a to-do list to stress you out later.)
I should have tinked when it was a row and a half out and not when it took me two days.
Anyway.
I tinked, I reknit, I cast it off.

Thousands of square feet in the house, and which one does Romeo want? The one with my folded shawl in it.

I blocked it.

Jamie assists with blocking.

And here it is drying.

We rounded everyone up and took them to the vet last week. That was a rodeo. Mab bent space and time to slip between dimensions, as usual, and it took us forever to find her in the laundry room. Angus and Romeo put up a fight, and sweet dumb Spoot had no idea what was going on. It turns out that Mab, who has always been a little overweight, is fine, but the two pounds extra weight-in-cat has gone to Angus. He's on a diet now, if by "diet," I mean I no longer get up and give him some food when he bites me a lot at 5 a.m.
For Angus' part, the biting will continue until meal service improves.

Regardless, I blocked the shawl and sent the Fool out to cavort artistically with it.



I'm already thinking about the other laceweight in my stash and wondering what I should knit next.