i had to do it...

my first knitting book was cheryl oberle's, folk shawls. this book offered 25 shawl patterns gathered from around the world. shawls being of various difficulty knit from an array of yarns. the one that caught my eye for a first knitting project was the garter stitch prairie shawl. it was simple, something i would use and ma ingalls would think it practical. the pattern was as the name implies, garter stitch with a yarn over border. at the time, the most challenging stitch for me was the KFB.

but it was the book and the project that started me knitting. i would look through all the beautiful shawls, struggling with deciphering the various stitch patterns, keeping a list of which shawls to knit some day. though i still want to knit half of the book, my ideal was the bird’s nest shawl from the himalayas. this is a 80”x20” shawl with a relatively (now) easy lace pattern. the pattern calls for the shawl to be knit out of pure cashmere…yarn held double while knitted. lust as i may, buying 2,267 yards of pure cashmere is not in my budget.

a few weeks ago i received an email from knit picks announcing a yarn sale. and though i had secretly vowed not to buy any more yarn until the beginning of the year, i thought i would just look. but there it was...as i was perusing the alpaca cloud, one of the suggested patterns for this yarn was the bird's nest shawl. i audibly gasped. for a fraction of the price, yarn for a bird's nest shawl could be mine. and, because of the secret vow, i thought about it for a couple of days before actually purchasing it.

the yarn came a couple of days ago. i chose the moss heather color. and it is really lovely. both my cute husband and sweet friend said, oh, yarn came for you today...as if you need more. but i don't care what they think. i can knit a bird's nest shawl.