Work Continues Apace.

I spent the better part of last week working on Charlotte's sixth birthday party, which we had at the park but which ended up being rained out. I took this just before we all piled in and God closed the door.

Party stuff took a lot of time but I still managed to spend a bit on Print o' the Wave.

I could use a little affirmation from you guys on this one. Here's my problem: the pattern calls for provisional cast-ons for each half of the stole, which are then grafted at centre back so that the pattern is in a mirror image, with the waves going in the same direction down each side of the body.

I don't know if she calls for this method because it's traditional, or because it's unnecessarily complicated. Eunny is a wonderful knitter but sometimes I wonder if she secretly flogs herself with a bundle of circular needles as a way to make the knitting experience even more tortuous.

I had a few options for dealing with this problem, because I don't care for the three-row band of stockinette at centre back when you follow the directions as given. I considered:

1) knitting the whole back as one piece, without bothering to reverse the flow of the wave pattern so that it appears as a mirror image. I actually think it would look just fine this way.

2) do the provisional cast-on using a circular needle instead of waste yarn, then knit one half of the centre panel. Break the yarn and join in again at the provisional cast-on, beginning the second half of the centre panel on the first row and knitting off the circular needle. This would create the same mirror-image effect as her directions, but without the centre stockinette row and all the plaguey kitchener stitch.

3) suck it up and do it her way.

I chose option 2.



Here is the centre of the shawl, with a perle cotton lifeline in place. I think this looks okay -- not perfect but it'll do. How good or bad it looks actually depends on whether your eye goes to the pattern of holes (the openwork) or the waves (the increases/decreases). I question whether non-knitters will even notice it...and if they do they will most likely think it deliberate. What do you think? The lifeline is still in place so I can easily rip back to this point and change it, if it needs changing.

At this rate I will be making a trip to Fun Knits this week to pick up an Addi Lace needle to work the edge. I need one that's about 120 cm long, which is hard to find, and since this is the first of what will be many lace projects, I don't mind investing the $20 for a really good needle.

And, talking of Eunny, this fall I am planning to tackle a knock-off of this beauty, using my trusty copy of Cables Untangled. I have high hopes for this one, but I just have to find the perfect yarn. I had my eye on an Elsebeth Lavold that Webs has on clearance, but I think it might be too heavy...it knits up to 18/10 cm. I think I'll have to go with a worsted, or light-worsted, though I was hoping for a quick project. But then, St Brigid only took me seven weeks, right?