necessity

I had to make this shawl. As a necessity. I bought the exact yarn that the pattern calls for (almost unheard of for me).

And I had to overcome my fear of stranded colourwork, as a necessity, because it is part of the pattern. Yes, this is the project that drove me to, well, not invention but certainly development of my knitting skills.

Basically, in on of my fits of arbitrary stubbornness I had sworn that I would never do colourwork. And that has worked for me for my ten or so years of knitting. It was actually quite helpful as it put some boundaries on the number of projects that I could aspire to and invest in. When I saw a great pair of Norwegian mittens, instead of trying to incorporate them into my mental knitting map, I could just say 'no, I don't go there'. Speaking of Norwegian mittens ...