Well, there were hanks and then there was a big, squashy ball of ruby Cascade 220 :)

Then there was this.  A year and a half ago, I was trying to figure out how to make a triangular shawl using the stitch pattern called Dragon Skin (see above link for chart) and I got nowhere.  As it happens, it seems I was coming at it from the wrong side.  Instead of working from the bottom up, I should have been working from the top down!

This did require some fiddling.  The pattern is 26 stitches wide.  That’s a lot of stitches to work up in increases between pattern repeats.  Fortunately, the pattern splits in half very neatly making it possible to work in 13 stitch increments rather than 26.  You just incorporate one half at a time!  First problem solved :)

Second problem - the pattern is only 12 rows.  Two repeats leave you short a stitch at the point where you want to start the next repeat.  I decided to work a dummy row to see what would happen.  That is, after working through the pattern twice, I added a row (two rows, actually, the knit out and the purl back) which didn’t do anything or change anything - just occupied space and, incidentally, provided the last stitch needed for the pattern.  Because each section of the pattern starts and ends with a K1, M1 (start) or a M1, K1 (end), in the dummy row (Myria called it a “leap” row - like a leap year - something added to make everything else work out evenly) the K1, M1 was followed by a K2tog and the M1, K1 preceded by an SSK.  Everything in between was knitted plain.  This was done in order to preserve the skeleton of the stitch pattern and maintain the proper stitch count.  Does that make sense?

It worked fine!  I mean, it was just a wild-ass guess, but it did the trick.  So every second repeat of the pattern (going from top to bottom) is two rows longer than the one before it.  I haven’t worked enough to know whether that will make any difference visually.  Myself, I don’t think it will even be a blip on the radar.

I started with 30 stitches and I’m up to 106 and halfway through the first ball of Cascade.  I suppose, since this isn’t lace, it’s going to use more yarn than the lace shawl did :)  The lace shawl uses 8 50gm balls of aran weight yarn.  I have the equivalent of 12 balls of worsted weight.  Think that’ll be enough for a generously sized shawl?  I don’t know either, but I guess I’m going to find out.

I started this on a size 9 (US) needle for the sake of softness and flexibility and am debating going up sizes as the shawl grows the way the pattern for the lace shawl stipulates.  I probably wouldn’t use the number of needles the lace pattern does, but I could see going to a 10 a ways down the road and then to a 10.5, doing about a third of the shawl on each of the needles.  I’m still mulling it over as I don’t have to decide right now.

I leave you with this inspired silliness:

Me:  I’m glad you put that hairbrush in the glove compartment.  I look like the wrath of God!
She: (laughing) Nah…The wrath of God’s taller.

Have a great weekend!

I’ve been thinking shawls, as you know, and specifically the Victorian Shawl pattern that Elann offers.  I’ve spent a fair amount of the last couple of days looking closely at this pattern and thinking about it.

The concept, when I finally was comfortable that I understood it, was actually very simple.  This shawl is made from the top down instead of from the bottom up and stitches are increased by 4, rather than 2, every other row.  And, because we aren’t making a plain, garter stitch shawl here, various stitch patterns are introduced and new repeats of them are incorporated across the width as soon as the constant increasing gives us enough stitches to do so.  This is my understanding.  If I have got it wrong, please set me straight :)

Once I stopped hyperventilating over the thought of how long those last rows would be, I rather liked the idea.  There’s a nice symmetry to the increases - one at each end and two in the middle.  I’m fond of symmetry; I like things to balance.  This is simply my own preference and I only mention it because when I looked closely at the pictures of the shawl in the pattern,  the transitions between one lace pattern and another looked - I don’t know - ragged?  Unkempt?  Decidedly un-symmetrical.

Back to thinking :)  There’s no reason those transition spots have to look like that - a careful selection of lace stitch patterns with the same repeat (or a multiple thereof) would make for a much nicer changeover from one stitch pattern to the next.  Also, the Victorian shawl makes its increases on the wrong (purl) side of the fabric which seemed needlessly complicated So I started swatching with these thoughts in mind.

It occurred to me almost immediately that instead of changing three stitch patterns over the width of the shawl, each stitch pattern could be carried down the length of the garment - like rays.  I know this isn’t a new concept, but it was new to me and an enchanting idea.  And so I began…

On the first try, I used the razor shell pattern all over and did the increase stitches, on the front, in garter stitch.  I don’t think the garter stitch looks very good and as you can see below, my cast on wasn’t nearly loose enough as the razor shell curls over :)

So I bound that off and went on to the next attempt.  Thinking a “flat” pattern might yield a more aesthetic result, I started with a 9 stitch panel of seed stitch and then, when I had enough stitches, added a mini-vine.

I also did the increase stitches in stockinette (much better!) and changed the method of increase from “knit into front and back of stitch” to M1 (picking up the horizontal bar between the stitches and knitting into the back of it).  Also much better.

I like this swatch a lot more though I think the seed stitch panels are too wide and the mini-vine is too narrow to suit me.  So I swatched again :)

I started this with moss stitch but it just didn’t work out well to my eye, so I switched over to seed stitch - a five stitch panel.  Next to that is another 5 stitch panel with a bobble every 10 rows or so.  There’s also going to be a lace panel but it requires 15 stitches and it was getting late so I didn’t get it incorporated.  I think I like this one best of all though I would reverse the positions of the seed stitch and bobble panels.

You see how I envision this working?  You can introduce any stitch pattern you like - just keep working the increases until you have the right number of stitches.  You could do every one differently, all of them the same, or mixed any way that suits your fancy!

Whew!  Nothing like a good yarn to get the brain ticking over :) I hope to have something in progress to show you on Friday :)