Real time

I'm not so sure I like this "real time" idea. Copping to today actually being Friday means that several deadlines are bearing down on me with far more hot-breathed speed than they were when I was writing about last weekend in NYC. (Breathe. I just need to remember to breathe.) Let's pretend then, for just a minute that I am not a writer with her soul being sucked out of her (breathe and drink coffee) and that I am actually just a knitter looking to finish a shawl. The shawl (in my special world of time-lapse and denial) has the same deadline as the book. The 30th, since there's a family thing I'd like to wear it to. This may prove to be impossible, and since I am not under contract to produce a shawl, but am under contract to produce a book, push may come to shove, but until the exact horrible moment of defeat, I'm trying to finish both.

Here's where I'm at.

I've done seven repeats of the bud/flower thingie...and I think that's enough. (I feel, for inexplicable reasons, that the option is not to add one more, but two, since things are more beautiful in odd numbers.) In six more heartbreakingly long rows I will be finished the main part, and be ready to knit some sort of as yet undetermined part of the shawl that will bridge together the border and the body.

This "bridge" needs to do two things. The border I have chosen requires 42 stitches per repeat, and my current pattern uses only 40 stitches per repeat. (The Oracle warned me about this in an email where he spoke of what would be the "rather intimate" relationship between the two pieces of lace. At the time I brushed it off. I knew that there would be a time when I would have to think my way through that, but I thought I would cross that bridge when I came to it. That would be now, and in this moment I am actually grateful that having checked the two pieces only just now, that there are only two stitches difference between them. I think that large vein on my forehead would explode if I had 14 stitches difference or something. ) The "bridge" piece needs to finish off the motifs that I'm doing now, provide a plain but fitting break between the two (one that hopefully stays in pattern) AND...and this is the big one...adds two stitches, ever so subtly, in each and every repeat. There are 14 repeats, which means adding a grand total of 28 stitches. I believe (breathe, drink coffee) that this is - considering the fluid and forgiving nature of blocked lace, a number that I can add without disrupting anything much. Feel free to quote that back at me when the whole thing ruffles along the border. I shall deserve it.

In any case, the current plan (if you can call the vague inkling that I have "a plan") to do more of this sort of stuff...

adding in the stitches immediately before beginning the border by making two of the double decreases singles. (Or maybe by increasing into the tops of the double decreases on the next row. That way those little guys would still be pointy. I do love the pointiness.) The only other consideration for this "bridge" is that it needs to not be too big. I have six rows of the body left to go, 50 rows of the border to do, and only a few days (while I write a book - breathe, drink coffee) to do it. Any "bridge" requiring more than 4-10 rows will be summarily rejected in a nod to the limits of human endurance. I'm optimistic...not stupid. (Most days.)

What say you all? Other options? Opinions? Ways out? Perhaps some gently stated concerns? (This would be exactly the moment to say "It will never work because....." )