Firmaments Lace Shawl

This is the shawl that never ends --
Yes, it goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started knitting it,
Not knowing what it was
And they'll continue knitting it forever just because
This is the shawl that never ends--


At least, that's what I tell people when they ask what I'm knitting.

Firmaments Shawl, Day 532

I cut the Fountain Lace section a few repeats short today. I fear the shawl is now growing beyond my control. I'm hoping today's action will help to at least curb its growth once it is in the blocking stage.

Firmaments Shawl, Day 540

Partway through the edging. I am beginning to have doubts about curtailing the Fountain Lace section. Perhaps it would have been better to do five more repeats of the chart. But, dear God, I could not have done five more repeats of Chart C! I fear that I will never have a restful night's sleep -- one without the page full of the same chart, over and over again, always trying to highlight a finished row -- and the highlighter ink never sticking! Would I have been haunted, night after night, by the Fountain Lace chart's taunting rows?

No, I had to stop at six repeats. It was for the shawl's own good. Too many more and I would have put it down altogether. I needed to start the edging, to know that there was -- there truly was -- an end in sight.

The double-pointed needle recommendation for the edging is a dangerous choice. I put a point protector on one end. That cut the risk of losing all the stitches when the shawl was in transit by half. It does nothing, however, for ensuring that the shawl does not escape while in transit. I'm currently using my "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Could KNIT Like Me?" knitting tote, and that seems to provide enough protection. I still keep an eye on it, though. I can't risk it springing out and engulfing an innocent bystander. Something about the alpaca part of the yarn that I don't trust...

Firmaments Shawl, Day 542

The shawl has been surprisingly quiet lately, as I slowly work my way through the edging. It makes me nervous, that this has been going a little too smoothly. I know that there is a graft up ahead, to join the beginning and end of the edging into one continuous piece.

And then -- I almost don't want to mention it -- the blocking. I know it will resist that. I suspect that the shawl may be in secret negotiations with my camera, which turned up recently after having been put in a drawer and forgotten for several weeks. Perhaps the camera was out doing reconnaissance, and used its advanced mind-wiping technology to make me forget about it, and think that I had simply forgotten where I put it. I will have to keep a closer watch on that camera. I'm not too worried, though, as long as I can keep it in sight; I know where its batteries are.