Giving Up

I've frogged the MS3 Mystery Stole.

A few years ago, I took a horrible class at Purdue. After weeks of misery and dissatisfaction, I dropped the class just a few days before Spring Break. I felt like dancing through campus to celebrate. If the professor had actually been seeing students during her office hour I probably would've mooned her. (She was holding a meeting, and had a secretary stationed to keep people away. How the he** does a humanaties professor get guard dog secretary, anyway?) Dropping that class (the only graduate course I've ever dropped) was a huge load off my back, getting rid of something that was unpleasant, labor-intensive, and useless.

This isn't like that. I was really excited when I started the Mystery Stole. I meant to work on schedule. I was outraged by the people who nastily complained about the design. And while I thought the finished project looked a bit unbalanced and awkward when laid out, it looked magnificent when modeled.

But I didn't ever get to the modeling part. I never finished the first clue. If I'd made better progress I'm sure I would have finished it. However, since this is all I ever completed, I'm saying goodbye.

Then there's the theme. I didn't think I'd care if the theme was Swan Lake, or Dante's Inferno, or anything else. But nearly half of this shawl is the "Cat's Paw" stitch, representing a pas de chat step from the ballet. And having once sat through a tedious, interminable production of Sleeping Beauty, which included a dancing-cat segment that Would Not End, I fear that anything which even symbolically combines cats and ballet would weigh on my shoulders like a ton of bricks, no matter how delicate.


So now my shawl looks like this. I'm sorry our relationship didn't work out, and that I didn't produce the something beautiful that the pattern deserved. I've never totally frogged and abandoned a project before, but it's probably a useful skill for a knitter to learn. Now I just need to learn to be ruthless and move on.

I may buy the pattern, because I really like the two-winged version, and I could substitute the cat's-paw section with something less psychically disturbing.

I've also signed on for Secret of the Stole. So I won't feel like I've wasted all the lovely lace yarn and beads, and maybe I'll do a better job of keeping up this time.


The Mystery Stole isn't the only thing I'm giving up....

I also have to stop this habit. Now. Before it gets any worse.

That's yarn on my nightstand. Two skeins, and I came close to adding the Cherry Tree Hill and the Knit Picks Memories. It started innocently enough - I got the package with the Fleece Artist kind of late in the evening, and I wanted a little more time to enjoy it. So it came to bed with me. Then I pulled out the Socks that Rock so I could finish the Hurricane Sock from my fabulous pal Darlene. It's been in a bag for awhile, so pulling it out was like Christmas all over again - "Wow! I have Socks that Rock! In Jewel of the Nile!" - so it seemed like a happy sentiment to fall asleep to.

But I wouldn't want this to get out of hand. After all, I own a lot of skeins of yarn I really like. And Aaron is sick, so I should be nice to him, and last night hesaid something like "you're sleeping with your yarn?" and I'm sure his distressed concern wasn't entirely codeine-fueled...nor was it entirely concern for me. So he can rest easy - the Socks that Rock is in a knitting bag, and the Fleece Artist is on its way to the stash. I'll probably even put away the Yarn Harlot's book now that I've finished it, since I don't want to look like a creepy stalker or anything.