Dipping My Toes Into the Frog Pond

February 26th, 2007

shawl in progressThis weekend I was so excited about finishing my shawl.  I laid it out to do pre-blocking measurements and discovered that when stretched it measured only 60″ instead of the 78″ that the pattern called for.  I picked it up and tried draping it around myself, only to find that it was indeed too small.  There were a number of factors which influenced the smallness of my shawl:  I decided to knit it on size 6 needles, instead of size 7 as the pattern dictated, because the pattern looked nicer knitted at that gauge.  That would normally not make a lot of difference in the size, but when I measured the needle in my gauge checker, it only measured as a 5, even though it was labeled as a 6.  Sigh.  The other contributing factor, and this one is the one I blame most, is that the yarn is 55% silk, which does not stretch. 

So, I frogged the edging on three of the four sides of the rectangle and decided to knit more repeats of the center pattern.  After I finish with that, I can once again knit the edging.  I really wanted to be finished with this.  I even started another shawl, because I thought all I needed was to block this one.  Now that one sits on the back burner while I once again knit the green shawl.  I really dislike having to rip out so much work, but I am a perfectionist and would not be happy with spending time and money on a shawl that would be unsatisfactory.  It really is of no use to me if it is not wearable.  I will post pics when it is finally finished. 

Posted in knitting | Comments (2)

2 Responses to “Dipping My Toes Into the Frog Pond”

  1. Susan Says:
    February 26th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    It looks very pretty. I know it will be worth the effort.

  2. Knit or Knot » On Knotting and Knitting Says:
    March 5th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

    [...] Shawl update:  I still have not completely decided what to do about the shawl dilemna.  I will probably rip back to the original body of the shawl in order to keep uniformity of color, and then do a wider edging to increase the size somewhat.  Meanwhile, I have been working on another shawl and I will post pictures of that at a later time. [...]

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