nothing can be easy with her!

My mom is the best knitting recipient because she always loves what I make her. I'm pretty sure I've said that before. This year I decided that I'd ask her if she had any request for Christmas - usually I just make what I want to make for her, and I think she's only asked for something specific once. I started wondering if maybe she was thinking "I'd sure like a green cardigan with 3/4 sleeves, but she just keeps making me mittens!" So I asked - and also sent along some pictures of sweaters and other things I'd seen and thought would look good on her because I figured it might be hard to just come up with something out of the blue like that. I'd seen this pattern for Cobble a couple weeks ago and I really liked the fact that it was a non-lace shawl - and it looked like something my mom would like. Turns out I was right.

However, in a fashion typical for my mother, it'd be great as long as it was something different. It's similar to how she can't buy anything off the rack without saying "this would be great but it needs different buttons" or "i wish they didn't put this stupid tag thing here on the sleeve" and worse, when she thought that the dining room chairs would be better with oak seats instead of the upholstered ones they came with. some things are easy to change, like buttons, and some things, like carved oak seats, are not so much, but she kind of acts like they're all the same! So she told me that she loves the stitch pattern and the weight and length of this shawl, but would like it better as a short poncho. So i said "for you, I'll find a way to do it!" I bought the pattern and my plan is to just use the main stitch pattern to make two rectangles and connect them - that's the way I made her last poncho (the one thing she requested!) then I'll pick up stitches all around the edge and do some math to figure out what needs to be fudged so that it works out. I'll knit the edging from the top of the chart down and I'll use the corner/peak part of the edging in two places - on each point of the poncho. God willing it'll all work! Ooh - and the other cool thing is that I sent her a bunch of pictures of MadelineTosh yarn (Tosh Merino Light) for her to pick from (because the way she dyes will be fantastic on this, I think) and she chose Ginger. So at least I get to knit with lovely yarn. I bought 3 skeins because I just don't know what this is going to take and I don't want to run out - so maybe I'll have some left over and I can eek out a little beret or something for me!