A New Knit for Mother's Day

First, let me say Happy Mother's Day to anyone out there who has played an important role in a kid's life, mother or other...  I know firsthand how difficult this motherhood gig is, and my hat is off to all of us!

And now on to the knitting.  Many moons ago (February), I cast on the fabulous and lovely Coquille shawl from Knitty First Fall 2010.  It's one of those fabulous knits that uses a simple trick to dramatic effect- in this case, knitting the shawl from side to side and using short rows to create nifty ruffles.  It was a time consuming knit- and a bit dull after a while- but the perfect knit to take along to say, an Avs game.

(Even if, after I for the first time ever publicly professed my love of a team and a sport, they went on to break my heart with a mind bogglingly terrible season...The game pictured above?  I think we were down by 5 in the first 10 minutes.)

Simple pattern aside, this knit was not so fun.  Why?  My fisrt ball of Schoppel-Woole Zauberball was just fine.  But the second ball?  Pure misery.  The color striations were completely different (bad Sam, check your dye lots).  Not their fault.  Their fault?  The thick/thin transitions of this ball were ludicrous.  In more than one place, the "thin" section of the yarn simply disintegrated, leaving me with multiple ugly fixes throughout the last few inches of the shawl.  And the thick sections were chunky and ugly.  I have used this yarn in one other project and not had an issue, and the first ball was fine, so I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming I ended up with the yarn equivalent of a lemon...

Each and every time my mother happened to see this shawl on my needles, she raved about the colors.  As I became angrier and angrier at the yarn, a perfect solution materialized.  Give mom the shawl!  I couldn't forgive it, and she totally loved it.  Everyone ends up happy, right?

It was going to be a mother's day surprise, but a few weeks back, while it was blocking on the dining room table, Annie made a big point of showing it to my mom and letting her know it was for her.  D'oh.  After it dried, I hid it away and brought it out today- where she had either forgotten, or put on a good show.  Or, maybe she never really liked it and she had hoped it WOULDN'T show up on mother's day?  Hope not!  Because that's all she got from me (though my lovely husband did take us all out to brunch, but that's another story.  We survived...)

What do you think?

Comments

[Ruth]

I think it looks lovely. To be honest yours is the first one I've seen that makes me want to knit the pattern.

[lauraj]

It's gorgeous and your mom wears it beautifully! Happy Mother's Day to you and your mom as well!

[Samantha]

Thanks, Laura! Hope you had a wonderful mother's day yourself!
-Sam

[Samantha]

Thanks, Ruth!  I really like this pattern better with more narrow stripes, so I may give it another go.  someday.
-Sam

[Audrey]

Very nice! Looks great on your mom!

[Angela]

I'm doing a project with the schoppell wolle now -- think you might have gotten a lemon since I'm loving the stuff -- though there are some thick/thin issues nothing like what you are describing. My problem has been with tangeling towards the end of the skein :0). Love the scarf though -- and giving it to your Mom was a great solution.

[Samantha]

I'm glad to hear that you are having a better experience with this yarn!

-Sam

[Samantha]

Thank you- for the compliment and for stopping by!
-Sam