Long Time Coming

Way back in 2009, spring, if I recall correctly, a couple ladies in the Edmonton Knitters Group thought it would be a great idea to do an Edmonton only knit along.  It would be a shawl, they thought, and it needed to be unique.  So one commissioned and one designed.

The River Valley Shawl is one of the loveliest things.  All of the completed ones I have seen are spectacular.  I'll show you a few, here and here.   I'm not generally a KAL person.  I just don't seem to do well when I have something looming over me.  This was different, I thought.  I could do it.  It wasn't a great big pressure, just we local knitters.  And familiar as I was with the designers work, I knew I wanted the pattern.  

The designer, ThatLoganChick, is a dear friend, though I don't often get to see her, and her things are so lovely.  She also did the really gorgeous Agatha Shawl   and one that I absolutely must knit, the Night Blooms Shawl.  She has also designed one specifically for those difficult but stunning handpainted sock yarns. Rhytidome is a textured shawl, that if  knit on a large needles with a finer yarn and blocked open, becomes this unexpected lacy thing.   (Hmm, I just had a thought.  That gorgeous skein I wound the other day might be right for Rhytidome!) 

I started the Edmonton Knitter's KAL just a little behind, but caught up by clue 5.  I was anticipating finishing with everyone else, zipping along as I was. And then I hit a snag.  Errors started cropping up in the ribbing.  I had fewer stitches than I was supposed to have, I'd rip back and then I'd have too many.  I couldn't tell what was going on in the lace flare or the shape in between.  And on and on.  My eyes were not skilled enough to find the errors I was making and my knitters heart not yet brave enough to rip back with utter abandon.  

So that lovely shawl went into a bag and sat till July of 2011.  I ripped back and readied it to knit and then it sat again. 

And now it is done.  40 months in the making, I give to you my River Valley Shawl.

Unblocked yet (I am assembling a pile of things that need blocking again, it seems.) but complete.  What a pretty pretty thing.  In size, it is just about perfect for winter wear at the office.  

This was the most intensive knit I have ever done.  Every step of the way you learned something new, and though, on occasion, your mind rebelled, in the end, you succumbed to her clear directions and well explained charts and created a masterpiece.

This was the second oldest thing in my work basket and it feels so good to get it ready for wear.  It might be the time to knit finish the other oldies up.  There were 4 shawls remaining at the end of my 2011 WIP-a-thon.  River Valley was one.  The others were a vintage June 2009 cobweb weight Icarus, (the one that caused the great bead explosion) and a second Icarus in a vibrant Zauberball lace, and finally, a 2010 Clapotis made of Wendy Happy.  

Long time coming all of them.  Maybe their time is now.