Edie's Shoulder Wrap from The Knit Shop - Day 5

History is bound to frog itself...

Well, phooey. 

“Onward” didn’t happen.

Well, it did, only it was swiftly followed by “backward.” As in rip it out, you fool, this won’t work.

For whatever reason, my knitting lesson in life this year seems to be “some things you just can’t fudge.”

I thought I could just plow forward through the feather and fan portion of this project even though my accent stripes were a bit off.  Turns out I could do that, but I ended up with wider green stripes—two rows of garter stitch gives you a single ridge, but two rows of stockinette give you two full rows, which look thicker.

The fixed version--after much gnashing of teeth

At first, I told myself I liked it that way.  You know those little kitting lies you tell yourself to try and convince yourself you won’t have to rip out three days worth of work?  You can get away with it for about twenty minutes, and then the truth hunts you like a hound.  Some errors you can live with, others you know will bother you for the life of the garment.

So what did I spend yesterday doing?  Ripping out three days worth of stitching to start the feather and fan section all over again.  

Lucky for me, I have a bunch of air travel ahead of me this week.  I’m going to need all that time to catch up.

Edie's Shoulder Wrap from The Knit Shop - Day 4

The feather-and-fan finish line...

One head cold, one migraine, one wedding, one baby shower (and associated hat and bootie knitting), one car trip, two minor crises, and a writing deadline later….I finally make it to the end of the garter stitch portion of this shawl.  Heavens, but that took a long time!  By now you all have become achingly familiar with my impatience for high-volume stitch top-down shawls.  You know what they say…you are doomed to repeat the lesson you haven’t yet learned.

Not that this is any kind of punishment.  It’s pleasant knitting—just time-consuming.  And given the crazy (and cranky) nature of my week, it’s been just the type of knitting I needed.  Even on the car trip requiring lots of navigation participation from me, I was able to knit while keeping an eye on travel directions.  The fiber is soft and fluffy, comfortable and comforting between my fingers.  Yes, this requires a very long circular needle—and those tend to go all loopy on me at times—but it wasn’t unwieldy.

The biggest challenge with this pattern so far?  The counting.  349 stitches and 57 ridges is a lot of counting.  The 57 ridges aren’t so bad, especially with the stripes every twelve rows, but it takes a fair amount of focus to count 349 stitches.  I found myself wishing I’d placed stitch markers every 50 stitches.

No worries there, because I’ll be whipping out plenty of stitch markers to note repeats as we move into the feather and fan lace section of this shawl.  Onward!