Summer Maple

Christmas Day, 2007: I receive 3 skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer lace weight yarn in the Maple Leaf color way as a gift from my husband, along with other yarns. It is lovely and appreciated.

Sometime later: I discover that I do not love knitting lace weight yarn. Very much anti-love, in fact. The Shimmer remains stashed.

June 2009: we move from California to Indiana. The Shimmer comes along.

Years pass. A few times a year I pull all of my stash out and rearrange, photograph, and otherwise play with it.

April 2012: I decide to make a concerted effort to knit up some of my older yarns. The Stash Knit Down group announces a lace weight along as a stash busting challenge. I decide to knit the Shimmer into Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi shawl, the July pattern from the Knitter's Almanac.

April-May 2012: I plug away at the shawl, which is easy enough to be relaxing. Eventually I start to add a faggotting edge. I wonder why I don't like lace weight.

June 2012: I edge. And edge. And edge. I begin to think that the pattern is named Pi not because of the increase pattern but because it is infinite. I edge some more. I remember why I don't like lace weight. Finally, at the end of June, cast off and sew up the edging. I put the unblocked piece over my shoulders and like lace weight again.

Today: I crawl around on the floor of my office for an hour trying to figure out how to block the damn thing into the semblance of a circle. Hate lace once more. Eventually fold it in half and pin down the diameter straight, then ease the curved edge out.

In the end, it is quite lovely. I could end up with lace weight amnesia in the wearing of this shawl.