December 20, 2024

Started this for the plane ride home from Aruba. Finished the first lace section. Pro tip, don’t use black yarn for lace and expect it to be easy to work in hotel lighting or on the plane.

Started the first garter section. I didn’t realize it was a striped garter - I may pull it back and change to color blocks instead. I thought it would be a few blocks of the darker beige then a few blocks of the lighter beige, not stripes. I’m not happy with the striping effect.

Sitting in time out for a few while I work on the end of year KALs that have a deadline, then I’ll decide what to do.

December 27, 2024

Frogged the stripes - hated them and couldn’t imagine working the whole project with them.

I’m going to do each garter section in a single color, using CC2 for the first 3 sections and CC3 for the last two. Or, if I think I have enough CC2 I just may do a two color version.

February 8, 2025

Finished 3rd garter section with the darker beige, and ended with just a few grams left of the skein. So we switch to the lighter color for the next one.

I was hoping to extend the warp just a bit so that I got two full garter sections with the lighter color but I definitely do not have enough black to do an extra section of the heart lace. Boo. So I’ll only have one garter section with the lighter color and then the bind off part with the lighter color. Not sure I’m loving that.

It feels like the whole wrap will be unbalanced. I’m ok with not symmetrical, but 80/20 feels like it will look as if I ran out of yarn and subbed in anything. Which is sort of what I’m doing. But I’m too far into it now to go back, and tinking all the way back through a lace section and a garter section to redo the last garter section in the lighter color only ends up leaving me with two partial skeins that have less than useful yardage.

I’m plowing forward and we’ll see, maybe I’ll be surprised.

February 9, 2025

Ready for the last lace section - hoping I have enough yarn to do the whole thing!

February 11, 2025

So, 6 rows into the next lace section and I clearly only have enough yarn for another two rows. This isn’t lace you can stop early - which means I have a problem.

Set it aside for the moment, but I think I can actually make this work to my advantage. Since there was a shift in color for the previous garter section, I can probably get away with a change to a different black yarn and not have it be noticeably different to the eye. And if I do shift to a second skein of black (or maybe go totally different with a charcoal gray??) then I can extend the length of the shawl and use more (all) of the second skein of beige - that could be a win/win.

Now to decide if I try for a black that won’t be too different, or shift to a deep gray and embrace the change - like a half and half shawl? Hibernating for a little bit while I head out on a business trip, will play with color and stash when I get back.

April 28, 2025

Finally got back to this one. Picked a charcoal gray that is a bit lighter than the black, similar to how my two golds are darker/lighter. Tinked back the 6 rows of lace I did in the black, redid the whole section in gray.

Started on the next garter section with the lighter gold, and plan to do a symmetrical number of sections for each of these two lighter colors to match the darker color section count.

May 7, 2025

Started the last garter section today, only this one and one more lace section to go before she’s done! Things move quickly once you get taken out of time out.

May 15, 2025

Finished the last garter section with not quite enough yarn to do another row. Couldn’t ask for a better pattern in terms of maximizing the utilization of yarn!

One more lace section to go and she’ll be done.

May 16, 2025

Fell short of finishing the last lace section by 3 rows - just short on time, not yarn, thankfully. No knitting tomorrow, but hopefully will get enough time the day after to finish this one and get her on the blocking mats.

May 18, 2025

Off the needles!