First shawl for “DRK March to May KlAL” had to be “What The Fade?!?”, of course. I had 4 packs of DK mini skeins ready for the task. Since the yarn is DK weight, I had to do the brioche with size 5 needles and do less rows before the color fading. I’ll still follow the Color Fade sections.

In the pattern, I noticed that from the cast on to the end of Section One, there were 10x of increased rows, we’ll say “10 repeats of the pattern”. There was a same an amount from the Color Fade #1 and Section Two, as well as from Color Fade #2 to Section Three. So instead of doing 10 repeats, I did 7 repeats. The increases on the spine helped me keep track of how much I have done, placing progress keepers on the last increase row before I add the new color group.

I started with the first pair of skeins, black and gold. Once I did 7 repeats, I added the second pair, solid green and “everything skein” (it literally has all 4 colors!). I didn’t need to open the second mini skein pack until after I added the third pair, I needed a little bit of yarn for the “everything skein” while doing the last row of the Color Fading. And for the third pair, I need a little yarn from the second pack to finish.

For the garter section, I started with the blue/white skein. I did 6 rows before starting the Garter Fade with the “everything skein”. I followed the full instructions, doing all 20 rows. Then I continued doing 6 rows of the second color. Even though I had to open the 4th mini skein pack, I knew had enough yarn for the blue/white, “everything”, and gold skeins. But I also knew I would struggle with the blue/green skein. I took a risk doing 20 rows of the garter fade and paid for it in the next fade when I added the green. Fortunately, there was enough green skeins to make up for short fade section and I did 10 rows of that color until I introduced the black yarn. I did the final garter fade with 20 rows and knitted in the black yarn until I added my final black skein.

For the icord bindoff, I switched to a size 7 needle. I had 12 grams of black yarn so I played yarn chicken, hoping I would have enough to finish the shawl. Unfortunately, I ran out of yarn with 30 more stitches to bind off. I had to use my leftovers for “Tempted Hand Painted Glam Grrl” skein to finish the rest. The colors are a little similar, as long as I ignore the metallic in the yarn.

So I ended up using all four packs of the DK weight mini skeins. The shawl weighed 467 grams. I have 48 grams remain with no black or blue/green to use.