Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Knit-Along II: knit's Feather and Fan Shawl - Part 3

Keep on Keeping On...

A good part of this pattern is full rows of knit or near-full rows of purl, so this can get a bit tedious. The luscious color-way helps with that—I’d go cross-eyed doing this in a solid color yarn. I keep stitching through the waves of pastels, thinking how stunning I’ll look on Easter Sunday draped in my fabulous shawl.

For ease, I put a stitch marker at the end of each 16-stitch repeat, but that’s had its share of problems, too. Because you’re putting yarn-overs on one side of these markers, they have a nasty habit of migrating a stitch over a few rows. It’s not hard to compensate for once you realize your marker has simply wandered under a yarn-over when you weren’t looking, but you’ll drive yourself nuts trying to figure out where you dropped a stitch before you realize what’s really happened. I solved this by counting out my stitches before I started each of the more complicated rows--namely rows 1 and 7--and putting my markers back in their rightful places before moving on.

It is really beautiful, though, and I’ve had the delightful experience of people stopping me when I knit in public and asking me what I’m making, touching the piece, and generally making me feel artistic and fascinating. Gotta love that. No one ever seems to stop me when I’m making complicated mittens or fluffy scarves, no matter how impressive the pattern might be. This, though, seems to be a real show-stopper. So do yourself a favor—go take your knitting out in public and bask in the glow of your own fabulousness. You deserve it.

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