Nope, Kathy, didn’t get the shoes. One shoe store per day is my outer limit. No-Blog-Rachel’s heart attack at the thought of me in heels made me laugh (she’s seen me walking through yarn stores)–no chance there, honey, don’t worry. Hey. They would make my cane too short. And I don’t need to try to reenact the glamour of the day I so artfully and delicately fell off my roof years ago; let’s keep the feet down to earth.

Changing the subject, come to find out from them that the women at Handmaiden did actually specifically try to match my mother-of-the-groom dress when they dyed my Camelspin. Having their Sea Silk in my book might not have hurt my chances for them wanting to do that–whether that’s a normal thing for them, I quite hesitate to assume, and I don’t want to put them on the spot re their future customers. So. Write a book, match a dress, you put in a little effort, they put in a little effort. Go for it. I’m glad I photographed the yarn with the dress for the blog; they were delighted to see that it had worked out as well as they’d hoped.

Somehow that meant the pressure was on even more to create just the most perfect design in the most perfect shawl ever for the wedding. It would have been so much easier to just chuck that and go knit whatever–but whatever simply wouldn’t do. I spent the last week–a week!–growling and swatching and ripping and trying again and gradually getting lightbulb flashes here and there as I went along, one eye on the calendar and knowing the date was extremely close. I needed to get started, fer cryin’ out loud!

I came home from Purlescence’s knitting night Thursday night, where someone had gasped when I told her how much time I had left, and I thought, no, I really can do it. Honest. (So cooperate, brain!) Did one more swatch or two…

…And my shawl is now humming along. I did it. I got my amaryllis pattern. I did it.