To Shawl or Not To Shawl

That is the question.

Today I feel discontented. Nothing seems just right, from my latte which got cold too quickly, to the woman who trimmed her finger nails on the bus in the seat ahead of me and proceeded to dump the clippings onto the bus floor, to the audiobook I am currently listening to on my ipod.

I started the Ethereal Fichu on Tuesday. I tore it out on Tuesday mid day. The pattern told me to use size 6 needles, I thought that created way to open of a look for me. I started again Tuesday night using size 0 needles. I am more satisfied with the look, but I am not sure that I am loving it. I have continued working on it trying to figure out if it will grow on me, but I am still ambivalent. I am enjoying the process of making it, just not loving the look. The problem is that I don't have a triangular shawl pattern that is inspiring me to new heights of lace making brilliance. I think that the problem is that I want to create my own shawl, without a pattern, just a motif, but before I do that I feel that I ought to know how the shaping of a triangular shawl works. It is also very good to see that using size 0 needles isn't making the lace unbearable dense. In the picture I pinned, without actually blocking, the completed portion so that you could actually see the design.

Not Knitting Related:
The other day I read knitcake's posting about being brave about her art. Generally, I lack any sense of bravery myself. My somewhat secret ambition is to be a fine art photographer. Unfortunately, I lack the financial resources to attempt it, and the courage to actually show any one who might truly know something about photography my work. As a result I haven't really taken any decent photographs for years. I have excuses, but that is all they are is excuses. I came home from snb last night and I decided I wanted to share one of my photographs. Warning, it is far from great, and this is a photograph of a photograph. When you stand outside my apartment this is the photograph you will see hanging next to my door.

The image in real life is not quite so dark in the upper left side, it is dark but I think you can see more detail. Let me explain a little about it. First, I love roses, the smell, the sight, the silkiness of the petals. They are practically perfection, even with the thorns. I placed the rose in the center of a checker board and as you can see, set the board one had for chess and one half for checkers. The reason I did this is that in my mind the rose in the vase is symbolic of a happy relationship, which is many people's hope and goal, whether it is marriage oriented or not is irrelevant. The problem is that it seems, at least in early stages of a relationship, that the parties are playing by different, conflicting rules. One side symbolically playing checkers (with basic easy rules, though not lacking in challenge), and one side playing by a complex and sometimes confusing set of rules, i.e. chess. In order to reach the goal (the rose) the sides have to come together and set aside the conflict by compromise. Right now, the rose seems so far out of reach for me that it isn't even on the table, but then again, I started the post by saying I was discontent, so let me end with that too.

Before I go though, I plan on getting the yoke together on lace and tuck, so I hope to have some progress on that to show on Saturday or Tuesday.

Have a good day!