Triskaidekaphobia

The pile of Finished Objects to block is getting bigger!

Yes, that is an unwoven end. It's not blocked yet so I don't have to! 

Sometime in March I left the following note on my Hera's project page in Ravelry:

This has been languishing because I am apparently crap at figures. Argh.

Hah! It's true. Do you remember when your math teachers used to assure you in that oh-so-superior tone that you'd better learn this while you can because you're going to need it later in life? Well, it goes double for knitters. That's twice as much.

But I also remembered another little quote from the costume design teacher at Colorado State University:

If they can't see it on a galloping horse from 20 yards away, stop worrying about it.

Again, I say Hah! Knitting is also an exercise in making decisions about whether to fix the problem and move on or scrap everything and start over. The more knitting I do, the more inclined I am to do the former unless something is Completely Dire - 3 extra stitches, it turns out, definitely does not fit into that category, so I increased here and decreased there and voila! Numbers that match.

This shawl is big. Not huge - that descriptor is reserved for the great 6-foot square Shetland productions a la Sharon Miller and our Dearly Departed Knitters of Yore. But nevertheless, it is big.  These fence posts are 4" wide:

Tess Designer Yarns Super Socks & Baby, 1760 yards

And since it's largely in garter stitch it's also squooshy and pleasantly stretchy. It'll make an excellent California wintertime shawl, and I'm very pleased! And in case you didn't notice that number in the photo caption, it clocks in at 1759.5 yards. We round up here are Chez Unrepeatable - a girl deserves SOME sort of a break, after all! - so that's 1760 yards, or exactly one mile. Hurrah!

To celebrate, I wound up some yarn I got at the CommuKnity closing sale back in February of 2009:

Jade Sapphire Fibers Cashmere-Silk in Blueblood Red

At the time I thought I'd overdye it, but the color has grown on me and perhaps I'll keep it as it is. Either way, this will grow up to be a Rock Island Shawl, which will also be my entre back into the World of Lace from where I've been hiding in Garter Stitch Land. It's a bottom-up shawl, meaning that it starts with working the (interminable) edging sideways, then picking up and knitting ever-shorter rows until you bind off at the center of the neck. The pattern calls for ~600 yards and I have 800, so I've increased the width of the shawl a bit. Or I will once I get that far into the edging. Two repeats down and 75 to go...