Victory From the Jaws of Defeat

Or, Every Once in Awhile I Stop Fretting and Go With the Flow.



The Florence Shawl was first visualized about this time last year. I saw myself spinning the wonderful cashmere/silk fiber, which came to be. I saw myself knitting a Faorese shoulder-shaping shawl. This came to be. I knitted and knitted. I saw myself wearing the long beautiful shawl on my Italian vacation. This is where the wheels came off. I knitted everywhere I went on that vacation, and after it was washed and blocked, it leapt back to its original dimensions. I was so bummed. I balled it up and stuffed it into the pocket of my winter coat, figuring it could hang around my neck on the winter early schlep to work. When the temperature suddenly dropped, I slapped on the thing and ventured outside.

Oh.

That's why people like cashmere. It's a nearly weightless cloud, warming without itching. Any way you throw it on, it drapes like it was arranged like that. It clings ever so delicately to whatever you're wearing, so it doesn't require repeated tossings over the shoulder. Now I let the Florence scarf cuddle around my throat most of the day, rearranging only when I want to make a new artistic statement.