however, in an effort to postpone this course of action - i have purchased two skeins of (cheap cheap!) knit picks fingering weight peruvian wool to try my hand at a pair of traditional Komi (Russia) fair-isled mittens. its a pattern i already own and that i've had my eye on for a couple months here. so the plan is to get my first fair-isle fix this way... and if that isn't enough (and i hope it isn't) then its on to Ufserud.
also - thank you for all the great comments on the Beaverslide Scarf. They are greatly appreciated. its a great thing when a project turns out as well as (or better than?) you had planned it (even something as simple as a scarf).
you may have noticed a complete and utter silence has fallen over b.t. about all things Ene-related. you know, the shawl pattern i was all pumped up about and excited for. had started it about 5 or 6 weeks ago and was going strong, plowing through the charts.... and then POOF. nothing. no pictures. no comments. no sounds.
well, i'll tell you why. i tore it all out. hours of work, more than half of the project completed.... frogged like a mother. its just now that i'm ready to release that information, because i was just so frustrated by the situation. i had made some mistakes interpretting the pattern veery early on (thats the worst part of it), and despite all of my "it'll be fiiiiine" affirmations... i'm too much of a perfectionist to really be okay with any glaring mistakes. especially on such a major piece. so of course, i should have just done it right away. right when i had the first inkling of anything fishy. but i knit on, for hours and hours before i finally was able to convince myself that it'd be better to destroy and rebuild.
after a cool-down period, i picked it all up and started again this weekend. lucky for me, the whole experience of knitting lace is pretty meditative and most of the bitterness subsided upon contact. after some intense knitting over the last few days, i'm on my way back to breaking even. i dont have pictures, because for the most part, they would look the same as all the pictures i was posting a couple of weeks ago!
but if i must say so myself, this time..... it looks goooooooood.
