Damn Knitting

For some time before the fire, I was working on a new shawl pattern.   Something more complicated than the ones that had come before.    One that required charts, and attention, and patience.   We took the finished sample to the beach to take lovely pictures.   I showed the pictures to a LYS owner.   She called it "exquisite".   Exquisite, I thought, maybe that is what I should name it.    All I had left to do was to turn my notes and charts into a marketable pattern.   That, of course, being my weak spot, it took me months to get the pattern written up and formatted nicely.

Then, the fire happened.   The sample was ruined with smoke & soot.  I tried cleaning it but the process made the fibers fuzzy (okay for casual wear but out of the question for submission or a shop sample).   Even the fuzzy version is lost since I left it drying at the hotel we stayed at those first couple of nights (Yes, I called.  No one turned it in).   Damn.

Oddly enough, losing the sample made me that much more determined to recreate the shawl (and yes, thank you, I think I will call it the Simply Exquisite Shawl!).   The only problem is that both of my computers died in the fire and I never printed a copy.   Damn.

On the up side, though, my notes survived (in one of the totes I rescued the night of the fire).   I know what and how much yarn I used.   I know what size needle I used and I have a printed copy of the main lace chart.   Unfortunately, I did not see fit to make notes on how I began the shawl, nor how/what I did to set the stitches up for the lace chart.  Damn.

Using pictures (thank heavens I back-up all of my photos to Picasa), I was able to recreate the first part of the shawl.   I am on a roll.