martinimade

From humble beginings, a shawl is born.

Blocking:

And, yes, these pictures aren't great. It's hard to photograph a white shawl on a grey background. Or, at least, it's a hard thing for me to photograph.

In its unpinned glory, modeled by the Pie Goddess:

You will note the big mistake in the middle bottom bit. I hemmed and hawed about posting this -- despite the fact that I never once thought about ripping back to fix this flaw. There are two reasons why I didn't rip back. The first reason is a practical one. Given that I didn't notice how bad this patch was until I was blocking it, there simply isn't time. Really.

The second one is a more metaphoric one. This is a shawl for a wedding and, as such, in my mind at least, it's come to represent something about marriage, which I was thinking about while I was knitting it. Marriage, too, has its ugly bits. The shawl's mistakes came about because I lost track of the fundamentals like counting to 11 and when to purl. A marriage's ugly bits often crop up for the same reason, which is that you lose track of the fundamentals.

It's something to keep in mind on your wedding day, I think. Yes, yes, you should celebrate and let those around you celebrate as well. But know that there will be spots that you look at later and wonder what the hell happened. If you can keep pressing ahead and still make something pretty dang beautiful, you have done quite well and should be proud.

And I am proud of this Icarus, despite its imperfectness. Ditto my marriage. And I wish the same for the happy couple.