Something to aspire to a wedding ring shawl.

One day I would like to make a wedding ring shawl. The Heirloom knitters on Ravelry had been reconstructing a pattern and the completed shawl is known as the Queen Susan shawl.

Fleegle's Queen Susan Shetland Lace Shawl

The thing about a wedding shawl is that it is thin enough to be threaded through a wedding ring. That is a 180x180 cm (6x6 foot) shawl that today would cost starting from £2,000 and up. To make this type of shawl you are going to need roughly 8,000 metres of gossamer weight lace yarn. Think about that it is 8 kilometres or 5 miles of yarn. My mind boggles at the sheer dedication of time to make this shawl, the skill and the mastery that this shawl demonstrates.

When I first was learning about the different lace traditions I thought there was no way that I would be ever be able to do lace as I was absolutely craptastic at reading a pattern let alone a chart. Nope I would never ever be able to do a Shetland or Orenburg type Lace shawl. But the more I practice and the more I challenge myself I am coming to see that making this type of shawl will be one day an achievable goal. I have even queued the Queen Susan shawl on my Ravelry queue which is almost at longer than my life expectancy. Though the day I actually do make and finish this type of shawl successfully I think I will shout it from the tree tops. I am pretty sure that the other half will go "That's nice dear" not realising the muggle that he is what a massive achievement that this project will be for me.

I keep calling myself a beginner to intermediate knitter but this is with cough 35+ years cough of knitting experience. I recently went to the work lunch knitting group and someone commented on how fast I can knit but when I compare myself to others I know I am an average knitter. When do you know that you have mastered a skill? Do we ever master a craft? I think that is why so many people continue to knit or crochet as they are ever extending their skill levels.