When I was on vacation I worked diligently on the Leaf Lace Shawl.  I tried to fix every mistake, avoid being "creative", etc.  At some point though I realized I was too far in the weeds and decided to just keep moving toward the finish line.  My thought was that I would just finish this thing, block it and try to learn from my bazillion mistakes.  In other words, I decided to "cut bait".

I finished the knitting portion today and this evening the shawl took a nice bath and was blocked.  I do have pictures.

Pre-Blocking Blob

Post (or in process) Blocking Shawl

This is as close as you’re gonna get.  I expected to see nothing that looked anything close to the pattern.  I thought I had messed it up that bad.  So, I expected to be quite discouraged from the blocking experience.  Instead it was encouraging.  Yes there are a bazillion mistakes.  But there are many areas that look just as they should.  I thought that none of the thing would look like leaves but most of the shawl has the leaf pattern.  Granted, the error filled portions have leaves that don’t look so good.  They are rather Picasso-esque.  But much more of the shawl looks ok than I thought it would.  So, you can’t come any closer but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared.

The good thing is that prior to blocking I was near about terrified to try another lace project.  Now I’m anxious to give lace another try.  It’s not hopeless afterall.

Moving on…..

There was a huge boom here today.  A freakish boom.  In Florida these are sonic booms and can usually be blamed on the space center.  No such scapegoat here in Washington.  I never did figure out what is was.  The neighbor said it was thunder.  No it wasn’t.  It sounded like an explosion or a sonic boom.  I thought long and hard about it being an earthquake.  (Stop laughing… I’ve never been in one so how should I know that "earthquake" was a dumb idea!).  The whole house shook and it really got me wired.  I was shaking for a good 45 minutes afterward.  I guess all those "we’re gonna die" doomsday scenarios for when the mountain blows got to me just a bit. 

I have about decided that it was a sonic boom.  Fort Lewis isn’t far away and we have military helicopters, planes and all sorts of freaky looking stuff flying over the house, especially at night.  It’s like they are practicing some sort of mountain maneuvers.  Well, although this was in the middle of the day, I wonder if they were doing some test flight or something. All I know is it sounded just like the shuttle coming in.  The house shook so bad that it reminded me of when this happened. Freakish!

In other news, I am getting some odd hits and one of them I think I ought to address.  I got a hit today for "tubing in the Withlacoochee River".  Please come back whoever you are.  The only people who tube the Withlacoochee are those individuals who are later known as GATOR BAIT!  When we canoed it there were gators everywhere.  You’ll get your behind bit off if you go out there with a tube.  Rainbow River, yes.  Withlacoochee River… not if you’ve got any sense!  Just say no to tubing down the Withlacoochee.  Not only are they there but because the water is so dark they sneak up on you.  It was creepy even in a canoe.  So just say NO!