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Dear Blog

Dear Blog:

It is time to write this to you so you better understand the progression of my thinking.  As you know we have had an on-again off-again relationship for months.  There would be times of intensity where we were together daily followed by long stretches when we didn't see each other.  You need to know this state of affairs is all about me and not you.  Let me explain.

The idea of spending so much time with self-absorption was becoming a bit repulsive.  Who do I think I am to be putting into the world all this stuff about my own journey in knitting, spinning or beading.  Add to it all the personal adventures away from my hobbies and it appeared to be becoming obsessive attention to self  Then there was the time it takes to come up with something different to write about and frankly I gave up.  It seemed like a self-indulgent activity that needed to end.

But then recently I was thinking about a shawl I knit last fall and donated for a fund raiser to the dog rescue group my daughter-in-law is involved with.  It had been knit with a Berroco yarn purchased last summer at a drastic reduction, so the shawl could be donated without a second thought.

It was a shawl I had not written about because it was one of those times.  When I decided I might want to knit that shawl again it took me nearly 1.5 hours to find the pattern.  And that's when a light went off in my head.  Yes, this writing dear Blog is myopic; the major purpose of it is to help me keep track of what I knit, or spin or bead so that I have not only the pattern, but the name of the yarn, the size of the needles and information about any alterations made.  If others choose to read this rambling fine, but the main audience is for me.  Somewhere along the way I came to believe this was writing for an audience; completely forgetting the original plan.

Forgive me Blog; it is time to get some things recorded again for my posterity in hobbies. Some would argue Ravelry would do the same for me, but it would not allow the other important parts of my life to leak into this musing.  It is good to track the growth of my grand daughters and M&M as well as record starts and end dates of project; Ravelry cannot accommodate all that.

So even though we have been separated the hobbies, mainly knitting, have continued.  Let's start our reunion with that lost pattern.  It is Hydrus by Martha Wissing from Ravelry.  The Berroco yarn was Cirrus, a discontinued 42% superkid mohair, 40% nylon and 18% merino wool extrafine.  The pattern was actually designed for this yarn and puts this project in that rarest of occasions where the appropriate yarn is used to knit the pattern.  With only 114 yards or 105 meters on a skein, four skeins where purchased and that mauve colour is one of my personal favs.  Here are a couple photos taken in early November 2016 on a hydrangea bush and a fence in the back of my son and his wife's home.




In closing this shawl nearly knit itself.  The pattern is well written with simple yet interesting details.  Both qualities explain why I was interested in knitting it again and had to find that pattern!

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