The beautiful shawl I have been working on for five months is finally finished.
The pattern is from Mason Dixon Knitting, with a few modifications of my own. I choose to use a sport weight yarn in colors Melon, Pink, Light Pink and White. I love the entrancing gradiating stripes. The finished length with the ruffle is almost five feet (your “wingspan” is the same as your height; most shawls are made to wingspan).Nina is like a friend to me. She has been with me on the bus everyday for the entire spring semester. She represents five months of my life: five months of studying, reading, writing, worrying, praying, waiting. She marks the end of my junior year and the beginning of my senior year in college. Nina also represents a new mark in my knitting. This is the most complicated color piece I have knitted to date. The pattern itself isn’t complicated, which allowed me to use a more difficult color scheme.I have decided that for my senior year, I am going to make a lace shawl. Not an easy, beginner lace. No. I want to do a complicated, kick my bum, crying-because-I-have-no-idea-what-to-do lace with charts and fancy stuff. Why would I want to take on this task my senior year, the year when I have to be getting ready for my future and making sure that everything goes right? Because I want something that I can look back on and say, “I made that my senior year in college. When I thought things were getting tough in my classes, I picked up that shawl and started knitting. That helped keep my perspective in check.”

So in a couple of months when I am screaming in a fit of rage and declaring that I am stupid for setting out on such a task, remind me that I asked for it.