A Wing and a Prayer

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably remember the saga of Icarus (FO pics here) the wedding shawl. If you haven't, you can read about it here, here, here, here, here (my personal favorite), and here. I told you it was a saga. Or, if you just want the short version, Icarus was my first (and so far my last) lace shawl. I made it as a wedding shawl for a childhood friend, and the project was fraught with yarn breakage, dropped stitches, 500+ stitch rows, and running out of yarn just rows from the end, days before I was originally supposed to give it to her. And then, the bridal shower was put off for three months, so Icarus has been living in a ziploc bag in my yarn closet since I finished it, amid minor hysteria and possible drunkenness, in October. This, therefore, is a momentous occasion:

This is Icarus, getting wrapped to go to its new home tomorrow. There is a bridal shower tomorrow in Saugus, about three hours from my home. There will also be another in town in February, but--naturally, considering the nature of this entire experience--it will be held on the one and only Saturday of the entire year when I will be away on vacation with my family. So tomorrow, I will be driving the six hours round trip to attend the Saugus shower--through a raging rainstorm, if the weather channel is to be believed.

Getting Icarus wrapped is almost like packing to go to the hospital to deliver a baby. After the many long months of planning and work and surprises and small tragedies, I'm just ready to get it over with. I've been asked how I can bear to give it up, and whether my friend will appreciate it.

I can bear to give it up, because it was never mine in the first place. From the moment of its conception, Icarus was hers. I was just taking care of it for her. And although it came out better than I ever anticipated--and certainly better than I had any reason to expect--that just makes me prouder to be able to give her something that is beautiful, rather than just handmade.

Will she appreciate it? Of course she will. She will appreciate the thought and effort that went into creating something special just for her. She's not a knitter, so she has no way of knowing just how much thought and effort went into this particular gift, nor would I tell her, even if I knew of a way to convey an understanding of the hundreds of often-stressful hours it cost. That's not the point, is it? The point is that I know that I have given her something of myself; something that she will probably keep and remember forever. I know that every stitch holds my prayers for her happiness and well-being. And that's really what this gift is about, after all.

Any bets as to whether I will actually make it to the shower without any further disasters?