I have a love/hate relationship with this shawl.

I started it many months ago, with the intention of finishing it as soon as possible. A lot of things came up, and I got overwhelmed by life, and 3/4 of the way through I put it down and had to focus on other things. Clearly, in hindsight, this was a very bad idea.

I picked it up again last week with the determination to finish. For once I thought my OCDness of marking off rows and taking complete notes of where I was up to in a pattern paid off, and I knew exactly where I was up to. I began happily knitting again, grateful to be doing something challenging, enjoying the concentration and the way it was stretching my brain.
This was until I got half way through the row and realised there was a Giant Hole in the row I was knitting.

The world seemed to shrink to the size of that hole. It was like I was an ant staring over the precipice of a knitted cliff. I was staring right at the death of many multitudes of hours of knitting.

The hole went 3 to 4 rows deep. I may have represented an exact interpretation of the O__O face.
After a bit of panic flailing, I carefully pulled the shawl off the needles and proceeded to rip back until I was certain that the hole and damaged yarn were completely gone. Then I ripped a bit more back, just to be sure. The shawl had grown a mind of its own, this much I am completely sure of. It festered and schemed and waited for the day that I would come back, patient and unwavering.

Then came the most stressful 45 minutes of my knitting life; picking up the stitches again. My children were under threats of vast amounts of angst and revoked privileges if they distracted me from my quest.

Nuclear scientists have not had the focus of my mind that night. Scared to move, hunched over the knitting, doing deep breathing exercises, I plowed onward. Of course I was panicking too much to count how many rows I had ripped back, so then came the painful process of figuring out exactly where I was up to in the pattern.

I may have let loose a few whoops of joy when I found my way back on track, (and attracted strange looks from other family members) only to find that to my horror, the yarn was unraveling and breaking before my eyes. The unknitting gods were kind to me, and I joined the yarn once again. A few rows later, the same thing happened.

At this point I was beyond afraid of this shawl. My palms were sweaty, my heart was racing. I got anxious, and then relieved, and then anxious again… as I got to the end of each section of each row, somehow - magically! - with the right amount of stitches, and then began the next. Each purl row felt like a holiday. Time to breathe again.

Tonight marks the end of that journey. I don’t know what happened with this yarn, because I’ve never had Wollmeise yarns break before. I don’t know why the pattern scared me so much. It was extremely well written, and easy to follow for those of us not in the current clutches of a panic attack. It was most definitely the hardest thing that I have knitted.
I don’t know why I didn’t finish it sooner. Perhaps I will learn. (But probably not!)

The shawl is beautiful. The process was not!

Even blocking it was a huge ordeal. I have never had so many issues. I think this project was jinxed.

---------> I must clarify though, in case anyone gets the wrong idea. I LOVE this pattern. And I LOVE this yarn. It was not the fault of either of those things. I am not even sure what went wrong. It’s all a blur.

Lis’ Tips for Dealing with Holes:

• Before you start - bunch as many stitches up onto the needle as you can, and ease them off. DO NOT PULL. You can even push them off from partway down the needle.

• Put one finger down over the knitting where you a ripping from, and use the other hand to gently pull the yarn to undo the stitches along the row (underneath your finger). This stops the previous row being pulled undone, along with the stitches you’re undoing.

• When you’re knitting lace that is one sided; stop ripping at the end of a pattern row. A row of purl stitches is a lot easier to pick up than a pattern row.

• Count each row that you rip out, so you don’t get lost ;)

• Lay it all out flat on a table if at all possible, when picking up stitches, as well as ripping them. Putting as little tension on the item as you can is the key.