June 13:

Done and blocked! I was able to do 11.5 repeats, with about 4 gr of yarn left over after the bind off. (I used JSSBO, which worked perfectly.) Before blocking, the straight edge measured 21” and the long (bind-off) edge measured 42” along the curve. (Gawd, it’s hard to measure an irregular shape like this!) After blocking, it’s 31.5” along the straight edge, and the wavy edge is 80” if I measure the ins and outs of the waves. I expect it will shrink back a little once it’s unpinned, but that’s still a massive change. I can’t wait to try it on and play with ways of wearing it!

May 29:

This shawl sat in hibernation for a while, while I underwent eye surgery and wasn’t up to looking at charts or fine stitchwork. It was also in time-out due to a dropped stitch that had mangled several rows -- but last night I tinked back and got everything set straight, and re-taught myself to follow the stitch maps. I’m back on track and looking forward to knitting more of this!

Dec. 24:

This is my first time using Stitch Maps. It takes a bit of practice (and some time with a highlighter or two) to get the hang of them -- but wow, what a powerful tool. I’m so impressed. I’ve been wanting to try them for a while, but it wasn’t until Hunter Hammersen published her book Curls that I actually had my hands on a full pattern that made use of them. For the first little while I needed to troubleshoot by going back and forth between the standard chart from the book, and the Stitch Map linked from the e-version, but once I figured out how to read the Map properly, I stopped wanting to look at the other chart.

The Gobstopper yarn is lovely, too. It’s pure merino, but it has a velvety hand that makes you think there might be cashmere in there. (Maaaaybe it’s just the rich purple that makes me think of velvet and therefore of cashmere, but hey, I’m not going to argue.)