"The Wedding Shawl": A new drama series Part One: Picking the Pattern

So, my brother got engaged to his girlfriend, Carly.

And I was very happy for the two of them.

But a little sad.

Because I am a bit selfish and wished I could help with the wedding, but I can’t because I don’t live in New Zealand or Canada. (Boo.)

So I had the brilliant idea of how to weasle my way into the wedding…I would knit.

See, Carly’s planning on wearing a strapless dress, and the knitter in me automatically screamed, “Cold shoulders!” True, it will be summer, but summer evenings can get a little chilly. Sometimes.

So I talked to Carly and ~~pathetically grovelled for the honor~~ set forth my intention to knit a shawl for her wedding day. (I stifled the urge to skip about the room when she enthusiastically accepted my offer.)

I spent a few hours looking up shawl after shawl, and compiled a list of eight different patterns that I thought she’d maybe like:

Swallowtail: http://yulianknits.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/why-a-bunch-of-beads-looks-pretty-but-is-essentially-unuseful-at-least-for-me/
Luna Moth Shawl: http://marinoie.blogspot.com/2010/01/luna-moth-shawl.html
Birch: http://susancrowe.co.uk/2010/04/16/it-made-me-the-ksh-junkie-i-am-today/
Echo Flower Shawl: http://www.pepperknit.com/2010/11/echo-flower-shawl/
Queen Silvia Shawl: http://rogue-knits.blogspot.com/2009/06/queen-silvia.html
Summer Shawl: http://osbornfiber.com/2011/01/07/a-joy-forever/ (detail shots)
http://deserthomemaker.blogspot.com/2009/06/im-so-excited.html (shape)
Forest Path Stole: http://thingssoolikes.blogspot.com/2008/02/end-of-path.html
Myrtle Leaf Shawl: http://segasummasuvila.blogspot.com/2008/07/must-ilma-punaseta.html

Then I emailed another two choices a day or two later because they were too pretty to leave off of the list:

Purity: http://dagi35.blox.pl/2009/06/Plan-wykonany.html
Citron: http://j-essaieonverrabien.over-blog.com/article-citron-au-coeur-d-artichaud-64202817.html

Carly narrowed it down to two designs (Purity and Forest Path Stole), but was having trouble deciding on which one to go with. Being the inpatient knitter that I can be, I gave her 37 hours to make up her mind. (Yeah, I really did! But only after she told me that she was terribly indecisive and needed a “cutt-throat” deadline.)

Thirty seven hours passed…and no email from Carly.

I posted a mocking Facebook status update: “Dost my eyes deceive me? No lace decision? Oh, now I’m sad.” (Reading that now makes me think I should have used “mine” instead of “my.”)

She replied, two hours later, with: “I”M SORRY!!!!!! (If you are talking about me lol) Decision being made NOW!“

I had an email within that hour to tell me that her choice was something completely different from what she had previously narrowed her choices down to. I laughed out loud.

Michael asked why I was laughing and I told him that Carly chose a pattern that wasn’t one of the two she was previously considering. Michael laughed too.

The pattern that Carly ended up choosing, drum roll please….is the Echo Flowers Shawl!

Tune in next week for Part Two: “The Yarn” of the Brooketopian drama “The Wedding Shawl.”