After wallowing in the depths of inertia and self-doubt for months, I've embarked on a big push to finally, once and for all, finish The Victoria Shawl.

Good gracious, there has been (and continues to be) a lot of knitting in this monster.


I started this project in March of 2009, foolishly thinking I could get it finished to wear for my daughter's wedding that fall. At that time, we were looking at a Price Edward Island destination wedding, and a soft and fuzzy mohair shawl would have been the perfect thing. I knit full speed ahead and had the body of the shawl done by July of that year.


As time went on, the wedding became a Caribbean destination wedding, and the idea of a mohair shawl became just a bit incongruous. And then there was my daughter's wedding dress which effectively took over my life in the months leading up to the wedding. The shawl got shunted aside, and except for spending two weeks worth of evenings with it during last winter's Olympics, it's been languishing. I would look at that knitting basket and think dark and guilt-ridden thoughts, centering on how much money I had tied up in ALL THAT kidsilk haze yarn and how interminable it had all become. Sigh.

Something shifted in my thinking in the last few weeks and I've been working feverishly with the goal of completing at least one repeat an evening. I'm working on the knit-on border, which is full of yarnovers and DOUBLE yarnovers. It's impossible to work on in a social setting, so here I sit, in front of the TV, glowering at anyone who dares speak or interrupt while I'm counting the yarnovers and castoffs in each row of the border.




I'm nearing the end of the second long side of the shawl; the border is about 80% completed. The end is almost in sight.