Summit Shawl

Finished, now blocking. It is shorter than I like, but I unintentionally made it one column wider, and that is the reason. I didn't discover that I had miscounted until the shawl was well under way, and I wasn't about to rip it out. It will have to do.

It looks complicated, but it's not. It is just very time consuming because of all of the back and forth knitting and purling on small numbers of stitches. Turning and turning the work.

And now on to something completely different: One of my peonies. I LOVE peonies!

Dumb Luck

I have just finished the Summit Shawl. That tiny ball of yarn above is all I have left and, boy howdy, am I lucky. I never once weighed the yarn or the shawl to see how much I had used by this point or that point, so I had no idea how long to keep on knitting. AND I had never actually read ALL of the directions (dumb, lazy luck) to know that I had to finish on a left-curving section in order for the bind off instructions to work. I just kept on going and suddenly noticed that there wasn't a whole lot of yarn left. But I had just worked a left-curving section. So I was golden. Whew.

I'd rather be lucky than smart? Not really, but I'll accept it here.

Now, (past exonerative tense here, since I will admit no blame) mistakes were made. But I can fix/hide them, so once I have done that, and tied off the ends, and blocked it, this shawl is over. Thank doG.

Sisyphus is I

I feel as if this Summit Shawl should be called the Sisyphus shawl instead. I knit and knit, and the ball of yarn never seems any smaller.

I received the "half" dollar in a stack of ones that I was handed as change somewhere in the Florida Keys. Nice. I think that since it is more than half, if only by a little, I can exchange it at a bank for a whole dollar bill. I just keep forgetting to take it to the bank. So here it is, showing how much yarn remains. I would swear that it is the same amount I started with.

In a couple of weeks, Stitches South comes to Atlanta, and I will be there for the third time. Last year I ended up with yarn for the Satan Skirt. And last year SallyKnits ended up with 1800 yards of raw silk to make the Summit Shawl; after the show closed, I decided that I wanted to make one too and ordered the yarn from Tess Designer Yarns. I love the yarn. I hope that I will love the shawl, if it is ever finished. And I will bee-line to the Tess Designer Yarns booth this year. But if I even mention the words: Oooh, pretty colors. Maybe I'll make another Summit Shawl, I hope my friends will shout: Step away from the raw silk!

OK? Sally, Lucille, Anna and Deanna??? Promise?

Cheating is Good

Do you see a mistake? Of course you don't. I fixed it. (Now be nice and stop looking!)

At Thursday night's knit night I made a mistake, a terrible mistake, on my Summit Shawl. I can't begin to explain it because even an experienced knitter, unless she is currently working on the same project, wouldn't understand what I was talking about. I started tinking, and kept on tinking, stitch by stitch, because I couldn't find a place to start knitting from again as a result of all the intentionally dropped stitches. Other knitters advised me to STOP and put the knitting away for another time.

Wise advice.

This morning I decided that since there is a logic to how the shawl is knit, there must be a logic to how it comes apart, and I would find that logic and fix the mistake. I never found the logic. After a while, I gave up and cheated instead, creating a yarn over where I needed one and knitting two stitches together where I needed one stitch rather than the two I had. It worked!!! Now I am knitting away, being very careful.

I blame my mistake on either:

a. knitting while talking
b. knitting after having had a Mojito with dinner.

Maybe both?

Anyway, to atone for my mistake, I decided I should follow the pattern's advice and learn how to knit backwards. This video (scroll to the bottom of the page) was a great help. Knitting backwards is easy. Just not yet. It does work and I can do it, but the longest stretch of stitches that can be done with this technique is 12 stitches long in parts, 11 in other parts, and 6 in most parts. There is just not a long enough section for me to become proficient on. I now know what a beginning knitter must feel like---clumsy. It takes me longer to knit backwards on those sections than it does to just turn the knitting around and purl. So I'll stick with purling on this project and save the backwards knitting for another time.

Progress?

It sure doesn't feel like it.

I keep knitting and knitting and knitting, and while that IS the point of knitting, I would think I should have made more progress than just these 18 inches.

So I will keep knitting and knitting and.........................................some day I will have a Summit Shawl.

I hope I will like it by then.

AGAIN????? REALLY?????

Rats. I only turned away for...oh...maybe one or two minutes. And Baxter took advantage of it.

I am making progress on the Summit Shawl, even though it doesn't feel like it. But this yarn is beautiful 100% raw silk from Tess Designer Yarns,

about 1800 yards of previously un-knotted yarn.

And now, as a bonus, what is left coming from the shawl is slimy. Ick.