18 August 2017
Excited to receive the yarn for this project today! I’ll be starting with the OUTside of the Pistachi Oh So Nice and the INside of the Banana Cream Hi. The idea being that the browns will contrast with the cream and yellow and then the greens will show against the blues and purples. Hope it works out! I’m full of optimism :-)

20 August 2017
Had a couple of evenings working on this. I had a few false starts the first evening. I read the pattern as a row by row, forgetting to pay attention to the row numbers. You have to repeat the 2nd row. I forgot that I ALWAYS forget to do that when a knitting patterns call for it. Only took 4 attempts to realise! It’s so long since I knitted anything other than socks. :)

Anyway, it’s growing nicely and the “illusion” effect is showing up already! :) This morning, I realise there’s a mistake 11 rows down, 5 stitches have been purled instead of knitted on the edge (or vice versa) so that will have to be frogged down, whilst i’m at it, a few of the edge stitches are a little raggedy on the right hand side so I’ll probably go down to those, losing 19 rows in all. Fortunately, I am not the kind of person who cries over her knitting, I’m a roll your sleeves up and put it right kind of gal. I like knitting too much to get upset about it.

I am really looking forward to seeing the colour change begin. I wish I could knit today but we are DIYing on our house and I have to be up a scaffolding holding the ends of a tape measure and bits of wood. Mwah … see you tonight my lovely!

Monday 28 August 2017
I have managed to get a blissful hour or two every evening working on this brilliant project. I was aware the first colour shift was happening, I could see the cream was getting yellower and the brown becoming lighter. Under electric lights, it was hard to see much difference overall in the fabric til I took it outside to photograph and then wow! Really happy with how it’s going. The colours change as you move the fabric, this will happen when the finished garment is worn, what an effect that will give!

I so wish I could just sit and knit all day. Doing anything else feels like a series of annoying irrelevancies. Counting the hours til I can be with you again my lovely!

Thursday 31 August 2017
I must be getting close to the next colour shift … even though the pattern is quite easy, the colour changes are keeping it interesting. I can knit and watch TV at the same time. Last night stayed up to watch Sharapova get through to the third round of the US Open. I’ve been knitting as much as I can at lunchtime and evenings.

You know, the back of the work looks almost as good as the front!

Monday, 4 September 2017
I was knitting like a possessed person every chance I got over the weekend. Rows have grown to take nearly 10 minutes to do (I don’t knit very fast).

I’m not that enamoured of the colour combination at the moment. It’s a dull day and the photograph isn’t doing my knitting any favours. The yellow is now marled together with blue which is a nice combination until I introduce the other whirl. On that whirl, chocolate brown has given way to a browny grey which again, I think would be great and quite a sophisticated neutral shade on its own. Together …. um …. hmmmm, this isn’t what I envisaged but I’m certain it’s just temporary. I can see solid blue and a gorgeous green coming up which will look amazing together. “Keep going” is my mantra.

Tuesday, 5 September 2017
Back to feelin’ the lurvvve with my latest photo taken in natural light. So glad I had the faith to continue!

13 September 2017
An eventful few days since my last progress report. I had to frog down eight rows one evening. 10 stitches had been purled instead of knitted. I did consider dropping it stitch by stitch which probably would’ve been quicker than undoing the whole rows. But it’s such a faff doing it like that. I don’t mind for a row or two but eight … yeurgh. Now look I told myself, you like knitting so just do the eight rows again. At over 200 stitches on my needles now, it took nearly a whole evening of knitting just to get back to where I was before. I put it away for the day content. My shawl is perfect.

Fresh new evening, I get sat down pretty early after dinner. Brilliant, four hours ahead of me … my shawl will start to grow again. And . Then . I . See . It. The exact same row where I had purled 10 instead of knitting, I had done the same on the end 5 stitches of the reknitted section. WHAT??! How could I have done that? Why didn’t I check? What kind of knitter are you? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I get too complacent and think I know it all and don’t need to check myself, I think I am a good knitter. No, I’m not. I allow myself 10 seconds of cursing and then another night of frogging and reknitting.

Mercifully, there have been no major blunders since (I am checking every two rows now very thoroughly!) Whilst my knitting is quite close to me, I’m still thinking I would never in a gazillion years put these two colours together in stripes. Never. Close up, I don’t like them together at all but when I pull away and view the fabric from a distance, they look totally marvellous.

This isn’t just an illusion, it’s magic. Chameleonic, leopard changing its spots hocus-pocus georgousness. You can clearly see how much it changes according to which direction you look at it from. I am addicted to it, I don’t want to do anything else.

Sunday, 17 September 2017
A short time ago, on a sofa far far away … a wise knitter did prophetically foresee there would come a time when green and purple would live together in perfect harmony. And so it came to pass, and the knitter did rejoice.

293 stitches and increasing!

Wednesday, 4th October, 2017
The project continues to keep me in its thrall. I took it on a doggy holiday to the seaside last week and got some work done on it then. The last couple of days I put it aside as I was feeling poorly.

To recover my strength and put a little zing back into myself, I am taking today off to dedicate some happy me time to doing some more on it. Fortunately, I am self-employed and I have decided to be understanding about being a little lazy even though I just had a week off!

The shawl has grown considerably since my last update. I have a little under 70g of yarn left. The last 5 rows used 5 grams of yarn so at approx 1 gram per row current usage, I’m thinking I’ll do 40 more rows or so and then decide whether to do the finishing rows.

Sunday 8 October 2017
I’ve had a couple of delays. The cable on my circular needle broke during my “me” day off which made me very cross! I had to order a new one; that held me up for a couple of days. I also had a relapse of my tummy bug just as I felt I was getting better and I didn’t feel like knitting at all for a couple more days.

However, I’m now up to 370 stitches and each row takes around 20 minutes to knit. I have 17 grams of one Whiirl left and 23 grams of the other. Each row is taking a little over 1 gram to do. I have 6 more rows to do to complete a pattern repeat. With 4 rows in the finishing border, that’s 10 rows and will use (say) 15 grams maximum so plenty for that but there isn’t enough for another pattern repeat so my project should take me a little over three hours knitting to finish. I’m sad that it’s coming to an end as I’m enjoying it so much!

Wednesday, 18 October 2017
I finished last week, just need to find time to photograph it on my mannekin. I am very happy with it, finished just in time to swirling through autumn leaves!

Wednesday, 25 October 2017
Conditions were right today for photography so these are the last pictures. It’s a beautiful pattern, I have thoroughly enjoyed it!

I’m off to find some Autumn leaves to swish through in it!