30-06-2021

The Yarn Saga: I chose the Woolly Mammoth Grey as the MC and the Annabel Williams Rose as the CC BUT, apparently, this shawl uses more yarn than anticipated and, as of Section 9, I ran out of the MC in Grey. Note that I opted to do Section 8 CC in J&S Raspberry for reasons explained below.

Also, I’m usually the one who uses 20% less yarn than called for, even on shawls, which is why I thought to risk it with my original yarn choices. I recommend that you have as much yarn as the pattern calls for or that you can at least repurchase the yarns, as required. Why I decided to use irreplaceable limited-edition yarns on such a complex project is beyond me.

MC - Woolly Mammoth Grey
CC - Annabel Williams Rose (up till Section 8 and then again in Section 9)
CC - J&S Raspberry for Section 8

Ran out of MC (Woolly Mammoth) after Section 8 so for Section 9:

MC - J&S FC62 Light Sage Green (Update: This didn’t work so I ripped back and replaced it with MC - Estelle Yarns grey) Update - it would appear I used Classic Elite Adelaide, not Estelle but I’ve fixed this by adjustments in my yarn database so I don’t also want to change it above…
CC - Annabel Williams Rose

I have a feeling that this pattern is going to be challenging to interpret because the designer has a very specific approach (and it remains to be seen how easy it will be for me to adapt to it). Definitely, the cast on is tricky (for ergonomic reasons in addition to how it is explained). I’m about to restart it for the 3rd time and I think I finally get it.

Marker Coding: Section 2 and onwards
BOR marker - red
M1 - green
M2 - orange
M3 - blue
M4 - purple
EOR marker - yellow (followed by 4 steek stitches, which will take you to the red BOR marker)

Note that, after section 1, I have opted to use US 5 needles (NOT US 4, what’s called for) because I prefer the fabric on a 5 and, for colour work, it’s prob not a bad idea to knit on a slightly larger needle.

OK - the design is spectacular. The pattern is convoluted and, if I didn’t want the end product as much as I do, I might give this knitting project a miss. I’m continually having to look at versions of the finished shawl to figure out things that the pattern doesn’t specifically say or isn’t clear about.

• The instruction to mirror what has been done on the first half of a round (aka from beginning to centre stitch) on the second half of the round, is not adequate, IMO. The information should be clearly set out for all sections of every round.

• Section 3 - Rounds 40-53 - unless I’m mistaken, nothing tells you to go back to the MC for these rounds (except that the colour work chart shows only 3 rounds, presumably 37, 38 and 39.

• Charts C1 and C2 are totally unclear. I believe that C1, round 1, is actually correlated with round 54 BUT C2, round 1 is correlated with round 55 (as it itsn’t mentioned in the written instructions for Round 54 at all).

• I find partly-charted/partly-written patterns really difficult to work with. They’re neither fish nor fowl and my brain either works with words or pictures, but not both in the same round (and formatted in such a way that it is hard to work from both simultaneously).

Made Alterations to the depth of section 7B - the one worked with the MC: I’m running out of yarn - as I anticipated I might - so I CUT OUT R 104, 105, 106, 107, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120. This has implications for numbers of repeats and stitch counts required for colour work in Section 8. I’ve tried to make things work out but I’m basically just working on the fly at this point. I hate not being able to track what I’m doing but I’m out of energy.

Why I decided to use the Raspberry as contrast colour in Section 8: Partly to save the light pink for the end (because I’ll have to add back in rounds that I’ve removed to save grey yarn in segment 7), and partly to give some colour punch, I’ve decided to use my remainder of the J&S in 43 (Raspberry) to do the colour work motif in Section 8 BUT it seems like I may not even have enough of that to get through the section. At 6 rounds into 8A, I’ve got 13g of the Raspberry and I appear to be running out of yarn every which way. But miraculously, I had enough of the raspberry to complete the motif, in the end…

24-09-2021

Section 9: So I’ve ripped back the first 8 rows for I can’t say how many times, at this point. I tried to use the green grey FC62 in stash (even bought another ball of this colourway to be sure I’d have enough) and it doesn’t work. At this point I’ve decided to use the Classic Elite which, while worsted spun AND worsted weight, appears to be the exact same colour. It’s undyed and has 20% llama (which may add to drape but I don’t have much choice at this point because I can’t find more of the Woolly Mammoth. I’ve got enough of the Classic Elite to work with for the remainder of the project. But I also don’t know if I’ll use it OR the dark brown J&S as a contrast colour (only have 17g). I’m going to do a few rounds using the Classic Elite (before starting Section 9) at which point I’ll decide whether to use it or the J&S dark brown.

I opted to use the Classic Elite grey for Section 9. There’s a difference in hand, but the diff in weight is not discernible and the colour is bizarrely similar.

The Steek: FWIW, I’ve steeked before and I don’t have any anxiety about this technique. Both previous times I used a crochet chain and all of the yarn was J&S. The pink yarn I used in this shawl is non-superwash worsted-spun but, in retrospect, it’s pretty slippery, given how soft the fibre is. The grey Classic Elite actually isn’t slippery, despite its fibre content and worsted-spin.

To try something different - and because I wanted a less “busy” finish, I used a thin machine zig zag stitch to reinforce the steek and it did NOT work well. I don’t know if I should have shortened the stitch length or done a thicker zig zag (I’m pretty sure, based on what’s happened, that I probably should have done some combo of the 2) but I would never do a thin zig zag again. Note that sometimes people machine reinforce with a mere straight stitch without issue, so I really don’t know what happened here… Let’s just chalk it up to a really unpleasant experience that I never want to have again.

In retrospect, I really wish that I’d done a crochet reinforcement. Instead, I spent the duration of knitting the steek “cover” (finishing method), while simultaneously using needle and thread to stop the steek-edge yarn from coming undone. I’ve been told by every steeker in the land that this is something that does not happen and frankly, I’m surprised because I worked slowly and with care. Of course, it’s any knitter’s biggest nightmare, esp after spending 100 plus hours working on a challenging project.

Hopefully, once I sew down the cover over the raw edges, everything will be adequately stable. But knitting the cover was challenging given that the yarn continued to want to unravel.

Steek Cover: I picked up stitches from the edge with a US0 (esp cuz the steek didn’t work well so I didn’t want to over-tension any of the stitches from which I’d pick up. I went to a US2.5 thereafter. To ensure that I’d have enough depth in the steek cover to cover the raw ends (given that I had to do my edging pick up farther from the steek than instructed, so it needed to be thicker/wider than it otherwise would have been PLUS I was out of yarn) I opted steamed the entire facing and gently stretch it to maximize its ability to entirely contain the raw edges. It totally did the trick.

Also, for those wondering how to sew the steek down, I opted to do something that produced a really clean edge: it was a modified blind hem but I used the full k-wise bind off stitches (on the facing/cover) to “weave” into and out of (so the newly-made hem stitch, on the cover being folded down, followed the line/shape of the pre-existing bound off stitch. I’d just pick up a partial thread of the wrong side of the shawl body when I entered one bound-off cover-side stitch and then again when I exited it. Sometimes I’d skip a stitch to allow for some extra stretch over the full length of the steeked edge. I realize that this may be incomprehensible but I can’t imagine how better to explain. The result is totally invisible.

Garter Border: I’m a bit concerned that the garter border in CC looks bulky by comparison with the rest of the shawl. I considered going down a needle size but opted not to because I was short on yarn and I wanted as much size as possible. Were I to make this, I’d start the border with a needle one-size smaller after the completion of the final colourwork round in Section 9.

27-09-2021

Final Thoughts:

• This shawl took ~300g - 78g of this was worsted weight. The rest was fingering weight. I aim for lighter-weight shawls most of the time.

• I bound off the main shawl (unsteeked edges) with a 2-stitch icord and it looks very nice though it used up yarn I scarcely had to squander. Fortunately, I’d forgotten about needing yarn for the steek cover - which was just as well because it all worked out in the end, if with a scant 13” piece of yarn remaining.

• I don’t believe the pattern indicates this but one should keep a minimum of 12g (and I’d suggest 15g) in the main colour to finish the steek cover. Of course, I didn’t think to do this so I’ve had to improvise on the steeked edge, by using a combo of the dregs of the J&S grey and the Annabel Williams Rose.

• Don’t forget that you only work the pattern between the KFB stitches, and when instructed, the second stitch of the KFB is made with the CC. Alas, I got confused on section 9 and, while it’s not tremendously visible, there are some colour errors that I won’t be able to duplicate stitch over, because they’re at the border between the end of one round and the beginning of another.

• Given the yarn quantity drama, which required me to cut some rounds before Section 8, I had to wing it in terms of the number of pattern repeats. As a result my colour work looks a bit different than written, as of Section 8. In retrospect, having to cut out rows to save yarn caused a lot of challenges and I wouldn’t recommend it. If I hadn’t been well into the shawl when I realized this, I’d have ripped back and started again with yarns I had plenty of.