Summer's Shadow Shawl from Hemstitched Heirlooms - Day 7

Unfinished business...

This weekend I knit for five hours in a car and three hours in a meeting, and I still have over 100 rows to go.

I can’t do it. I can’t make you watch for any more episodes.

Were the fiber not so lovely—it is soft, lush, and vibrant—this would feel endless. There are times when I look at this border and think, “I could have knit a bedspread by now.” But for the most part, the lacework is engaging but not mystifying, the wrong-side rows are simple enough to feel like a breather, and progress happens.

…Just not fast enough to be anything I would consider entertaining.  So, dear DestiKNITters, know that this project will continue behind the scenes while we move on to other adventures.  When it’s done, I’ll make sure and show you.

Should you find yourself with a lot of time to fill—say, congressional hearings, the DMV, bedridden pregnant mothers, trans-pacific steamships—this is an ideal pattern. Even if it is your first foray into lacework, the pattern isn’t too taxing and you’ve got 700+ rows to nail it down, so you’ll be a master by the time you’re done. I should note that there are instructions for a smaller size (which I, of course, ignored), so your shawl need not be the massive undertaking that mine is.  

Will it be worth it in the end? Absolutely.  Will I make you watch? No dearies, I’m kinder than that.

Up next, another foray into Texas Hill Country!

Summer's Shadow Shawl from Hemstitched Heirlooms - Day 6

Whack...

Still. Not. Done. 

And I’ve had one of those smack-my-forehead moments as to why.

Bella, asking "Why aren't you done?"

I was calculating a border row for each of the 342 garter section row stitches.  So I was figuring it would take me 342 rows of border stitches to work my way across the shawl, and set myself a corresponding daily row quota.

Only, I don’t “consume” (for lack of a better word) one garter section row per border row.  The slip-knit-pass-slipped-stitch-over that “attaches” the border row to the garter section only occurs on odd numbered rows.  Which means it takes two border row stitches to “consume” one garter row stitch.  Which means I have nearly 700 border rows to work my way through.

No wonder I feel like I have miles to go before I sleep—I really do!

I’m not going to make you slog through all of this.  I’m kinder than that.  I have one more knitting-filled weekend (long drive, car races, long meeting—all great knitting opportunities) ahead of me.  I’ll post a final installment wherever I land on Monday.  If I have to come back and show you how it all turned out at a later date, so be it.  I’ve got a new Texas installment waiting for you, and as everyone knows, you don’t mess with Texas.

Summer's Shadow Shawl from Hemstitched Heirlooms - Day 4

Life is like a row of lacework...

The nice thing about short rows of lacework is that you don’t really have to worry about getting lost.  This panel, as it flows along the lower edge of all that garter stitch, is definitely knitter-friendly.  Sets of P2s separate the three designs, giving you little milestones in each row.  Hit the P2s when you’re supposed to?  Good—you haven’t dropped a stitch, missed a yarn-over, or messed up some other way.  It’s as if each row has several built-in pats on the back to let you know you’re doing okay.  Not enough of life works like that, in my opinion.

I still can’t decide if the vibrancy of the color is going to overwhelm the clarity of the lacework.  Sometimes, you can have too much going on in a piece.  A textured yarn, for example, will often overpower cables or lacework. Long or subtle variegations generally work okay, but a crowd of color changes rarely allows for the negative space needed to let lacework shine.  Sure, the design will display if I hold this up to the light, or maybe if I wear it against a white blouse, but I usually want my lacework to be really visible.  I want all that hard work to be seen and admired.

That’s not to say it won’t happen with this piece.  You simply can’t tell until it’s blocked—it’s too bunched up right now to show its true character.  I always say it: lacework is like a lot of things in life—parenting, writing, gardening, baking—you never really know what you’ve got until you’re all the way to the finish line.

Forest Gumpian philosophy aside, I am enjoying the progress of this lace as I work my way across the shawl.

Summer Shadow Shawl from Hemstitched Heirlooms - Day 2

A whack-my-forehead moment...

Longer rows take longer.  

You’d think that’s a “duh,” whack-your-forehead sort of moment, but I am continually amazed how I can blind myself to that fact.  

Here I was, all proud of myself that I’d figured out how many rows it would take to get myself to the 342-stitch-row that marks the end of the stockinette portion.  Using the fact that each stockinette “ridge” (1 row up and back) added 6 stitches, I calculated that it would take about 55 ridges to get me through the stockinette section. 

Two blog posts for this section (yes, I do plan out the benchmarks in order to keep things moving and entertaining for you), which meant 25 ridges per post.  Easy peasy.

Well, yes, for the first post.  I made the 25 ridges with ease.  Because they were shorter.

And now they just keep getting longer (oh, longer rows, you are my personal nemesis…).  Remember, I started out with 12-stitch rows, and by the end of this I need 342-stitch rows. Holy garter stitch, Batman, it’s taking me 15-minutes per row right now!  

This endless stockinette was soothing when I started.  Now, it’s grinding.  “Knitting is fun,” I chant to myself.  “Knitting is peaceful and creative.”

Have you been here?  Of course you have.  Knitters love to bite off more than they can stitch.  It’s just another version of the massive stash mentality.  

Ah, if we all could only live long enough to do all the knitting we planned…