It’s a good thing I’m still out here in Arizona.  Otherwise, I am quite sure that the Forest Path Stole would have been temporarily cast aside in favor of a project that was not sucking the life right out of me.  Instead, having no other choice, I cast on again. 

I can’t believe I’m going to say this aloud, but I think I’m glad I had to frog my first attempt.  In my hurry to get FPS on the needles before I left town, I did my typical long tail cast on.  Generally a good all purpose cast on.  Maybe not so good for FPS…or future lace projects (do you think I’ll actually be able to retain this idea?)  It made the seed stitch border all wavy and made me worried that when I went to block the thing that the border would be so tight as to prevent all the blocky goodness from making a wad of crap into beautiful lace.  Then there were the mistakes.  So. Many. Mistakes.  Now…perfect.  At least for the time being.  (Did I learn nothing of angering the knitting goddess?  Saying the knitting is “perfect” would mean impending disaster and lots of swearing and wine.)  Now the knitting is going “well.” 

I also now have the opportunity to prepare for the inevitable question that be asked when this is finished.  “How long did that take you?”  It first occurred to me to keep track of the time on this project when I was already about halfway through tier 1 of the first attempt.  Since I had the fabulous luck of getting to start over I am keeping track of time spent on the FPS.  Bottom border and set up triangles:  4.5 hours.  Total FPS time so far:  14 hours.  It’s currently taking me 45-1 hour per lace chart (including potty breaks, television, wine and the occasional tinking).  If I knit the stole as written (may shorten a bit depending on how it looks) that will be a total of about 99 more hours…which doesn’t include mindnumbingly boring seed stitch top and side borders.  Does that even seem possible?  Maybe I really need to do that whole backwards knitting thing.

Home tomorrow…lots of knitting time on the plane and two hour layover.  I may have to try to find one of those nifty ear lights before I leave.  Someone should really talk to the airlines about better lighting for us knitters.

I leave you with this: 

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Cheryl!

1. Pacman was originally called Cherylman.
2. More people are killed by Cheryl each year than die in aeroplane accidents.
3. Early thermometers were filled with Cheryl instead of mercury.
4. Contrary to popular belief, Cheryl is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases she may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.
5. Cheryl was the first Tsar of Russia.
6. The state nickname of Iowa is ‘The Cheryl state’.
7. It took Cheryl 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.
8. Banging your head against Cheryl uses 150 calories an hour!
9. Cheryl can sleep with one eye open.
10. The first Cheryl was made in 1853, and had no pedals!