Choices

"Most of life is choices, and the rest is pure dumb luck."
-Marian Erickson

I often wish I could have it all:

• Chocolate and vanilla
• Time and money
• Wisdom and youth
• Cake and skinny hips
• Time to knit and read
  
• Family and friends
• Fame and privacy
• Demand and supply
• Solitude and communion

But the fact is:

We can't.

Oh, we may have all of these things in our life at times, just not necessarily the SAME time. Life is a series of trade offs. An endless quest for balance on the tilt-a-whirl we call our modern world.

For example, I chose two weeks ago to focus on my family and the holidays. This means I gave up (temporarily) any forward progress on Sunflower Design projects and the opportunity to capitalize on the momentum generated by my increased web presence in December by posting every day.

Another choice I made was to try and make the January 5th deadline for submission to the Spring issue of Knitty.

Yes, I know I'm insane, but that is another topic for another post...

Michelle sent me some lovely sweet lace in a foggy gray color. I put it away in favor of my "last minute act of desperation," hoping against hope that I could somehow put the project together at the last minute and make the deadline.


I am knitter. Hear me delude myself.

That's the real reason I have been silent much of this week. I couldn't blog about the project that consumed me.

• The bad news is: I'm definitely not going to make the deadline.
• The good news is: I'm very excited by the final design.
• The bad news is: you won't see Drizzle in Knitty.
• The good news is: you will see Drizzle here and on the Sweet Sheep website.

The original design was for a pullover sweater with a lace yoke, called Raindrop. I probably could have completed it in time...

But something wasn't quite right. It just didn't sing.





Then it got shuffled onto smaller needles and redesigned into a lace scarf, named Rivulet, with beading and a ruffled border.

But it still wasn't what I was envisioning.






After many chart revisions and some selective frogging, it has evolved into a full size shawl with asymmetrical lace inserts and complimentary beading, all evocative of raindrops flowing down a window.

And suddenly, just like that, I am in love again.

Now I could have settled for something less. And maybe it would have been accepted for publication. But I wouldn't have been happy with it.

I don't want to submit it for the summer issue. I mean, Drizzle is a good springtime thing, when it nourishes the earth,not a high summer kind of thing, when it ruins the picnic.

This was the choice I had to make this week:

• Present less than my best and get it in on time...
• Or go for it, full speed ahead, never mind the cost.

In the end it was a no-brainer.

The muse beckons. I follow. I could say I had no choice.

But I did.





So Drizzle will have to stand in line with the other WIPs, all eagerly calling my name, all singing their siren song...

"Choose me! Choose me!"

By the way, if you figure out that cake and skinny hips thing, call me...

We'll talk.