I began this project in November of 2014:

A friend and I had been chatting over Facebook, and she abruptly left the conversation as one of her dogs was experiencing a doggy emergency.

Unfortunately, it did not end well, and my friend had to make the painful decision to have her beloved Clemmie cross the rainbow bridge.

I felt horrible that my friend had suffered such a loss, and I wanted to do something to make the dreadful situation less dreadful, and the idea of a Rainbow Bridge Comfort Shawl was born.

The design and execution of the basic shawl went quickly, but when it came time to personalize the project, I got waylaid.

And because I had gotten to the parts that weren’t easy for me (crocheting slip stitches across the surface spelling out the dog’s name, for example), I would set it aside, telling myself that I would figure it out “someday.”

But anyone who has ever waited for “someday” knows that it is always in the future, so this week I finally put on my big girl panties and stopped waiting for “someday” to arrive and worked through the parts that were not easy for me — crocheting a doggy face that captured the face of the beloved Clemmie — and now the shawl is done.

The only thing left to do is get a large enough envelope (that is on my “to be done TODAY! list) and send this to my friend.

Below is the story of the Rainbow Bridge Comfort Shawl in seven parts which is not just the story of a crochet design but of the perils of waiting for someday.

Part 1:
Stash down 2014: I start work on a rainbow bridge comfort shawl

Part 2:
Stash down 2014: Cloudy with a chance of rain

Part 3:
An almost empty bag and a nearly completed project

Part 4:
Baby steps

Part 5:
Setting my intentions for 2016

Part 6:
The case of the missing ear

Part 7:
A Rainbow Bridge Comfort Shawl for Andrea