ALL THE LACE

I’ve never been one for pacing myself or setting realistic goals. I know this is common among creative types, but I might take it to extremes. I realised this when I was writing a murder mystery party for 20 people, sewing my costume for said party, organising said party, and looking after my mother who had just had surgery. I sent an email to the friend at whose house we were having the party and asked if she could organise the food because I was a little bit busy. When she found out what I was a little bit busy with, she nearly had a heart attack. Then she told me off. At length. Then she said she’d handle the food and the other party preparations.

My latest example of unrealistic goals was my lace binge. But it wasn’t like I set out to make life difficult for myself, honest. At first it was just a lace scarf. Because a friend was having a birthday and strongly hinted- using the words ‘I love your knitting, I want something made by you, please knit me something for my birthday’- that she’d like a knitted present. People who make such requests aren’t just knitworthy, they’re laceworthy. So I decided to make her a silk lace scarf. I was very organised. I ordered the yarn well in advance and every day I spent a significant amount of time patting it and stroking it and thinking about what pattern to use and determining to cast on the next day.

Then I went shopping for a dress to wear to this friend’s party. And I tried on almost every dress in my size in the shop, and a few that weren’t my size. And only one fitted. A shiny silky swingy dress that swished right out of the 1920s. The only problem with this dress was the colour. It’s a truly awful colour on pretty much anyone, and I’d really like to know what the manufacturer was thinking. On me, it makes me look I’ve been dead for three months, and the death wasn’t a pleasant one. So having bought this dress I needed a shawl to go with it to break up the deceased-and-moulding effect. And I just happened to have the perfect yarn. And as it was a special occasion silk shawl to go with a beaded dress, I couldn’t not put beads on the edging. So as you can see, I really had no choice.

There was no question of which shawl to make. When I first tore open the parcel of yarn months ago the yarn told me straight away what it wanted to be. I’ve loved the Fountain Pen Shawl ever since I first saw it. I’m not sure why, as I’m not usually fond of one big motif repeated. Maybe it was the simple elegance of the motif, with the nupp adding just a bit of texture. Maybe it was because I look at this and see fountain pen nibs, which I love. They conjure images of musty leather bound books, pots of tea, rainy days and antique wooden desks covered with finely-written sheets of paper.

And so, the stars having aligned and decreed that I must knit both the shawl and the scarf, I got to work. Because the stars are also a little bit of sadistic and aren’t very big on idleness, they also decreed that I had 22 days in which to make this shawl and scarf. And, it should be noted, I did it. Today was the deadline and I had both shawl and scarf bound off, blocked and photographed by 3pm. But maybe my new motto should be ‘just because I can do something in a certain amount of time, doesn’t mean I should.