The title of this post calls these "False Starts" -- these experiments are essential to the selection of the final combination of needles, pattern, yarn, and purpose.
Here's the shawl I finally selected. It's a pattern I can get onto one of those index memory cards in my head. The pattern works with the yarn -- I checked the directions. The needles? Had to step down one size from US 7 to US 6. The US7 was making a fabric that was too loose. And this one is fun. I can see progress; it has at least 3-4 different sections with different patterns (lowering the boring factor considerably.)
This pattern is on page 44 of Victorian Lace Today. Sowerby resurrected and transformed the Spider Shawls from the mid-Victorian period. The shawl can be a complete hexagon (6 sections) or half (3 sections.) I am making the half-hexagon version.
The pattern page from the book shows several things. First you'll notice only one of 6 sections is charted. This means you must repeat this pattern for each of the sections you knit; remember, I am doing 3 sections. Other items show the omnipresent yellow sticky note (upper left corner, peeking out), plus a piece of bright yellow highlight tape across a row of the pattern. It keeps my place and I can remove and reposition as I knit. It's not opaque, which means I can still see the pattern from rows below the one I'm working on.
I started two other patterns in the same yarn. One pattern is another offering from Victorian Lace Today and the other pattern I purchased from the Independent Designer Program (IDP) at Knitpicks. Here's what they look like when I discard and abandon them. Eventually I will rip them back and re-use the yarn, after I wash it and remove the squiggles formed by the knitting.
Discarded projects do not count as UFO's, which is a good thing. I have no intentions of returning to either of the rejected shawls. I won't be tucking them away in a box or bag for a future discovery. They're toast!
Two beginnings -- one still on the needles, the other a pile of will-be-tangles-unless-I-rewined-soon yarn. |
The one I've chosen may appear to be too simple to be elegant, but just wait til I start adding different patterns. It's great fun and quite satisfying to realize you've made the right choice -- remember I am a process knitter, which means the actual knitting must be enjoyable, even at the expense of something more elaborate as an end product.
This weekend is when I hope to finish the labels and mail the Christmas cards. May assemble the pre-lit tree and if I do it may stand without decor for a few days. I have knitting to do.
Have a blessed Advent season.
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