Oh. Snap.

My borrowed baby loves to hide behind quilts which are hanging to dry on the banister. 
After my boo boo today, I feel like doing the same.

It's a sound no lace knitter ever wants to hear.

I sat down on the couch this afternoon, reached over to pick up my Princess shawl, and pulled it over onto my lap.  Just as it was settling into place I felt a very wee tug, and then....

SNAP!

To be fair, with such wee yarn it was a wee sound....

I gathered the shawl up and immediately started looking for the source.  It didn't take long.  There have been two tiny bundles of yarn hanging from the shawl at points where ends would eventually need to be woven in, each held together by a plastic stitch marker/safety pin. One of the bundles had caught between the couch cushions when I picked up the shawl, and - as I'm sure you can imagine - it took very little pressure to snap the yarn.

I knit a row before I looked to see which of the two bundles had broken off. 

The good news...the snapped yarn hadn't pulled any stitches out.

The bad news...there is less than an inch of yarn hanging from the shawl at the point where it broke, and as it is pulled tight I imagine that inch will disappear into the shawl should I try to smooth it back into place.

And the point where it broke?

Right at the base of the middle section, where I started the first of the nearly 700 rows that make up the main body of the shawl.  It's where I joined the yarn for that portion of the shawl.

With less than 100 rows to go - and at least that many hours invested into this portion of my Princess - there is no way I can just rip out the middle and start it over again.  No, this is going to require some very tedious repair work...of the sort that would test a surgeon's hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

I've secured the break so that I can finish the shawl, and will do the repair when the knitting is over.

Until then...

Damn.