Everyone’s done it.

My mother never took the answer “everyone’s doing it” as reason enough for me to do anything. Now that doesn’t mean I was by any means a unique child. I wasn’t. I joined bandwagons just like most kids – including getting a shag cut and a motorcycle at age 14. It was the ’70’s.

Mom loved pulling out that oldie but goldie saying of “if everyone jumped off a cliff would you do it too?” I learned to roll my eyes at a young age and still perform that maneuver whenever the urge or need strikes. (I can snarl my upper lip like Elvis too but we won’t get into that…)

Sometimes though everyone is knitting or has knitted a particular pattern for a good reason. I’m trying to make good choices with my pattern selections and I kept coming back to one that I’d passed over because there are currently 6475 of them in Ravelry project files. Just because 6475 have been knit and it’s been queued over 5000 times doesn’t mean that if I don’t knit a Swallowtail Shawl I’m not a “real” shawl knitter I kept telling myself. But with that many just in Ravelry’s database there has to be a reason. Right? Right.

Now seventeen repeats completed on the Budding Lace chart (I’m planning on 24 repeats) I can see some good reasons to knit Swallowtail. The first chart was the setup, and the second is both mindless and interesting. The eight row repeat is easily memorized and still charming to watch develop. The later charts have nupps – and you know how I feel about nupps!