Out with the old

This is the last project I finished in 2016 – I wove in the ends (all 57 of them) on December 26 while we were driving from east to central Texas. I love how it came out!

The shawl is sizeable, definitely bigger than the one-skein shawl patterns I usually make. The long edge measures 76” and is 25” deep from the long edge to the deepest part of the triangle. Total weight is 247 grams (so it’s about a two-and-a-half skein shawl if you think in terms of 100-gram skeins of sock yarn).

It uses 7 different colors. I used some undyed Knit Picks Bare fingering as my main color and used about 1.25 skeins in all. For my contrasting colors, I added a skein of deep blue yarn to my Party of Five set of mini-skeins. I used about 75 grams of CC1 (the blue). I completely ran out of CC2 and CC3 (the two darkest greens) and did not complete the pattern as specified. I just knit as far as I could while finishing a garter ridge. (If you’re not sure how to estimate if you have enough yarn to do another row, it takes about 3x as much as the length of the row. Double that for a garter ridge so you work down AND back – don’t change colors on a WS row or it won’t look right!) I had a mere 2 grams left of CC4, 6 grams of CC5, and 8 grams of CC6 (the lightest green). Those will all go into my I Love Leftovers sock yarn blanket.

This shawl has 3 distinct sections. The first section has short rows in it - you can see above that the white rows are one ridge wide on the right edge and three ridges wide on the left edge. The pattern includes instructions for German short rows, which I have never used before. I’M A CONVERT. Seriously, next time you have to do short rows, give this technique a try if you haven’t before.

The middle section takes the longest. Those fetching rows that look like ribbons woven through the fabric slow you down, because you have to P3tog. I carried my yarn down the side to reduce the number of ends to weave in later, which helped. In the last section, I had to leave some rows out because I was running out of yarn. I don’t think it affects the final look negatively, though.

Despite the fiddly P3tog rows and the many balls of yarn, this was mostly a TV and car travel project for me. It was fine to knit in company. It was what I wanted to do as we left Pennsylvania on a 3000-mile road trip. My brain was fried from the fall and this was a great way to smooth out the rough edges. And it’s the perfect time of year to wear it.  I’m happy with the result!