Bringing Up the Rear....

Hey everyone!  Just thought I'd check in and see how everybody is doing!  I am amazed at how different each one looks and how very pretty they ALL are.

I have developed a bit of a love/hate relationship with my Juneberry, although the love side is definitely winning out.  I am sure this design will join that rare pantheon of knitting projects which I enjoy enough to knit more than once.

The hate portion says more about me than the shawl itself I suppose.  While I have completed Charts B and C and am several rows into Chart D, I found myself repeatedly frogging portions of Chart B due to frustrations with my knitting.  I find myself constantly disappointed with the various size holes in the lace.  Some (the really frustrating ones) seem big enough to drive a semi through.  Others looks "just right."  And no matter how many times I try I can't seem to relax about it.  I have had similar issues with my own knitting when doing cables and being frustrated with the holes that are created where some cables cross others.  I remember whining in class one day how I could "stick my finger" through the hole in the cable and my very smart knitting teacher rolled her eyes and told me "well then, stop trying to stick your finger through there."
With Juneberry, I have also been hyper-critical of the way the holes size up on each side of the little medallions that are created in Chart B which, of course, is a function of whether the yo comes before or after the decrease.
In a lace class taught by Franklin Habit last year down at Renaissance Yarns in Kent, I asked him about it and he very bluntly said it's just the way it goes and reminded me that that is the charm and personality of a handmade item, what differentiates it from its uniformly perfect and mass produced cousins.  I still find it a very hard lesson to learn though!

But when I put the shawl down and stand away from it, I like it.  A Lot! 

So, here's to relaxing a bit...