Monday, October 13, 2014

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!

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