After so many false starts, I am off to what is hopefully a good one by casting on 92 stitches with the help of stitch markers. I didn’t want to add the frustration of counting incorrectly to what has been an interesting quest to make my mother a shawl. I started off with the Virginia shawl and just couldn’t get the stitch count on the rows to come out right. Row after row had to be tinked back, recounted, reknit and then tinked again until finally I had to admit that either I am way too distracted for this pattern or just not capable. Both are very possible. Then I thought I would knit just a plain garter stitch shawl with a simple yarn over at each edge (which is what the first few rows of Virginia are). It looked okay and I though the fanciness of the yarn would make up for the super plain pattern, but it just didn’t seem suitable enough for my mother. I wanted her to have something fantastic that would look good with this really fantastic (and kinda pricey) yarn from Blue Heron. After browsing through the Ravelry pattern database for weeks, I came across a pattern that I thought I could do and already had in my stash.

So, here we are, a fresh start with Fall Leaves shawl from Spin Off, Fall 2009.

I’m hopeful that the Universe has decided that I’m capable of this one.