Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Uliuli Wai Shawl from Needlecraft Cottage - Day 3

The trellis treat...

I’m very fond of the trellis stitch.  I did several feet of it for the Lady Fern scarf, remember?  I love that it is a short enough repeat that you know exactly where you are in the pattern.   By the third repeat I didn’t have to look at the chart anymore, and that sped things up considerably.  Gone are the mundane inches of stockinette, replaced by the lovely lacy circles that make up the trellis stitch.  This one’s gonna be a beauty.

'Fess up time: I made a couple of large-scale mistakes—doing one row twice and a collection of missed yarn-overs—but they don’t seriously mar the project.  I’ve done one shawl where I had to rip out days of knitting, so I’m glad not to have to go back to that ugly place.  I’ve never been a perfectionist knitter.  If it still looks okay, I’ll press on.  But if I have to eat crow—or is that frog?—in order for the project to work, I’ll do it.  I know I’ve messed up the few stitches on either side of the section lines, but in most cases I looked at the overall pattern and fudged where the trellis circles fell so that things worked themselves out.

By the way, because I have been asked several times, I looked up what "uliuli" means in Hawaiian.  Here's what I found: Uli can refer to any dark color from the black of dark clouds to the blue of the deep ocean to the verdant green of cliffs. Even the dark color of a bruise, such as a black eye, can be described as uli. The reduplicated word uliuli describes color more directly. "Wai" means fresh water, as opposed to saltwater, which is kai.  So, the name of this shawl means "dark colored fresh water"--fits, don't you think? I sure hope Hawaiian water is as pretty as this.


Moving on to the next portion of the shawl, the trick will be to ensure I end up with the right amount of stitches in each section so that Chart 2 behaves.  Onward!

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