are very good things.
Flower Basket Shawl. Cashmere/Wool.
I actually finished the shawl back in August, but finally blocked over the weekend. You can’t really tell that I was two rows short in the edging.
Category: Knit Page 54 of 88
I picked up Anne again, after several weeks hiatus. Why did I wait so long? Well, that second row of each chart is a bitch. (First one is always a solid color. The second row is the one that established the pattern.) It usually takes me upwards of 5 attempts before I get the stitch counts exactly right. I usually end up back at the steek when I figure out that I’m off by one or more stitches. Careful counting as I go along doesn’t seem to help. Placing stitch markers as I go also doesn’t help, because I still end up with a missing or extra stitch somewhere along the way. (I seem to have problems counting to 6 or 8 or whatever.)
But once I get past that first row, I just fly along and the world is perfect. I was taking lessons learned from my first full chart series and applying it to the second repeat — don’t pull as tightly when I strand the colors. Let it “give” a little. See? No puckering!
The new repeat is smooth as silk, even without blocking.
The observant amongst you will rub your eyes, and say, “Hmm…Something’s not right, Ann.” And you’d be right. While I was making sure that I was as loose as someone on Percocet, I was, well, knitting as loosely as someone on Percocet. The stitch gauge was still okay because there just wasn’t much room for the fiber to go, except up. Yup, the row gauge was way off.
So, I leave you with this…
Back to square one.
I did learn something the second time around though. Count and place the stitch markers during the first row (solid color row). It’s easier to find out if you came out at the right place at the end of a repeat then at the end of the round. And if you count and place the markers during that first row, you aren’t trying do colors at the same time.
Believe it. I was never able to walk, talk and chew gum without biting myself inside my cheek. Break it down. Do one thing at a time. It saves time.
Remember when I posted about how I wanted to drag out the cashmere silk scarf? Well, no more. I auctioned off 3 of these babies at the club’s auction for youth sailing. What was I thinking????
I gave the scarf away before I had a chance to take a picture of it for my files, but I snapped one last night. It’s Chasing Rainbow‘s Cashmere Tussah in Purple Haze colorway. The pattern is Madeira and Diamond. You can find the pattern in Heirloom Knitting or Lavish Lace (“A Season of Mellow and Fruitfulness”).
I asked the person that I gave the scarf to, to bring it back in as a sample. I put 5 of my Chasing Rainbow Cashmere Tussah packages out for the winning bid to pick from. Someone asked if I would consider making a second one, if there was a bidding war. Stupidly, I said yes, thinking that it would be 2 scarves, at most. I ended up with 3 winning bids. (There were 4 at one point. I think one of the ladies saw the panic in my eyes and retracted her bid.)
Not only do I have a lot of spinning and knitting to do, but I’m only down to 2 packages of Cashmere Tussah in my stash. Sob. But SOAR is coming in 2 weeks. Hopefully, I’ll get to replenish my stock before they run out.
I took the scarf to my guild and to Spinning at Retzlaff Winery back in June. There was a huge run on the Chasing Rainbow sales that day after the scarf was passed around.