The great knitting monstrosity is nearly complete.

What is this monstrosity, I hear you ask. Surely, you Maya, the keeper of taste and refinement, are no creator of monstrosities?

Well, monstrous is in the eye of the beholder and while this is a very pretty project it did kinda get away from me.

It was meant to be a quick knit. A respite from the speed and frenzy of the Christmas rush-sock-knitting marathon. I had socks planned for hubby for Valentine’s, so a month was plenty of time to knit a nice relaxing shawl.

As ever, I went rogue fairly quickly.

Firstly I didn’t like my original colour choices and after a few days of knitting, I  frogged the lot. Starting again with newly purchased yarn I settled down and quietly knit, a talking book for company. The quiet did not last long. Annoyed with the chopping and changing in the pattern I decided to make my own, adding random holes or lace work at will. It worked out well. I am used to this approach – as a dyslexic knitter I can struggle with following patterns, the letters and numbers dancing on the page.

I carried on with my own little plan, making the shawl bigger with every stitch. The shawl grew. And then it grew some more. I could have stopped, called it complete and bound off the stitches from the needles. Only I had that newly purchased yarn and there wasn’t enough of it to do much else, so I might as well carry on.

I added more stitches. Then I added more and then an extra needle. Using two pairs of circular needles the circumference of my shawl was now 3 meters. Yes, you read that right. No, it’s not a typo. Each circular needle is 1.5 meters long and with two of them, well that makes 3m. The stitches are still bunched up tight, squeezed onto needles that bravely take the strain.

I am long past sanity.

I just keep knitting.

I don’t seem to be able to stop.

With each colour, I think this will be the last. This will be the time it will end. Time to get this off the needles and onto the bed. Then I rummage in the knitting bag and find another ball of wool purchased for the task and I am sat literally going around in circles as I add it to the rest, hands moving in a blur, the rhythmic click of the needles their own sacred lullaby.

I am bored of the thing now, but with no way out I plod on. And then suddenly it is done. Today is the day that it comes off of the needles. Today is the day when all is revealed. Is my gamble going to pay off? Will it work out ok? Will it look lush or shite?

Five months of work and more money than I am prepared to admit, will I love this shawl in the end or will it join other casualties in the bottom of a bag waiting to be unpicked and the yarn repurposed?

Oh, the excitement. Oh, the anticipation. This is life on the edge this is.

Tune in to the next week’s exciting episode of Knitting With Maya and all will be reviled.

This episode has been bought to you by our sponsors ALWAYS FOLLOW THE BLOODY PATTERN and KNITTING AS AN EXTREME SPORT.

P.S For the ill-informed Knitting is not the same as Crochet – you know who you are.