Love (and lace) Conquers All

Finally, the baby has arrived! My first grandchild, Jordan Marie was born on May 26 weighing in at 7 pounds and 11 ounces. She is beautiful -- of course, I'm her grandmother so what did you expect.
She has an incredible wardrobe including the knitted items I made. What I'm really looking forward to is giving my daughter a lacy christening blanket.
I wrote about the blanket last month. I spent months working on the intricate pattern. And at the end it was kind of a mess -- crimped up and lifeless. But thanks to colleague Diana Jordan, the blanket is breathtakingly beautiful. With the precision of a drill sargeant, she blocked the blanket into lacy goodness. I was fearful that the thin alpaca/silk wool would snap and the blanket would unravel. But she was fearless and showed the fabric no mercy. It was pinned to the floor, stretched taut and left overnight.
When I returned the next day, the blanket had been transformed and it was a dream come true.
Now it is ready to give to my daughter and I am trying to figure out what to tell her about it without sounding certifiably crazy. Here goes:
Dear Melissa and Jordan Marie:
I have been thinking about making a christening blanket for a grandchild for at least 20 years and have been searching for the perfect pattern since then. I finally settled on this one which took some time and skill but also is very pretty. It wasn't exactly the knitting process I thought it would be -- I thought I would think about how much I love you both while I was knitting it; but truthfully I was trying to make sure I got all the yarn overs and knit 2 togethers in the right places to think about love. The reason to do it was love, but love was not in every stitch.
Sort of like life itself. If we can be motivated by love, we can accomplish a lot, even if we're beset and besieged by doubts and troubles. In the end, love won out -- won out over the difficulties, the mistakes (there are a couple), and the frustrations.
Here's hoping that when you are swaddled in this blanket that love will be the crowning glory. I have waited, fretted and worried all these years for this. And as the Apostle Paul said: The greatest of all is love.
Lucia Herndon Horning