Woolgathering

I’m at it again. I’ve balled and cast on the Kauni EQ.

Mr L assisted, and we were winding around midnight on Sunday night. I hate sewing in my ends, so I hoped to make one big ball. I found that infeasible. I might have done two but I pondered the challenge of the rainbow colour progression… and elected to wind on a one-ball-per-rainbow basis. I have four rainbows

The bits of paper are marked 1 to 4, to help me keep my colours straight - I made a break more or less between the purple and the red, but it’s hard to be fully accurate. The ball with purple on the outside was the beginning of the skein.

What am I knitting this time? The Evelyn Clark Swallowtail Shawl from the Fall 2006 edition of Interweave Knits. (Ravelry)

The shawl should be in laceweight. I thought doing my first one in this Shetland-type yarn was a better beginning point. I may well have been wrong on that. It’s really hard to follow the pattern and locate errors. I’ve tinked it endlessly today and am thoroughly fed up with it. Nonetheless, I have worked my way through charts 1 and most of 2, having progressed from a 2 stitch cast on last night, to 147 stitches just now. I think I am even supposed to have 147 stitches at this point!

I’ve knitted through violet and red, and am emerging from orange now into yellow.

The colours are not as garish as they look here - it’s a grey day today, and the flash fired. The rainbow is in fact very dull and sombre-hued. Subtle, in fact - and quite dark.

If you have problems relating the shawl on the needles to the image of the finished shawl… well… so did I! The lace will appear once it is blocked - but the shape of it? Well, you start knitting this shawl from the centre of the top edge - the increases at each end provide the width of that top straight edge when the shawl is completed. So, although the piece is getting wider on the needles, I am actually knitting top-down towards the final point! Strange, but true. And was I relieved when I finally figured it out and satisfied myself that I hadn’t Gone Horribly Wrong? Oh, yes!

I decided last night that, as I have loads of yarn for this project, I would have liked to knit this in just the colours seen here - saving the green and blue for something else. However - the colour change from yellow to purple would have been foul. In order to use the restricted palette, I would have had to unwind my balls and knit back through the colours in the reverse direction IYSWIM. Too complicated to think through last night, so I settled for a full spectrum.

Not far to go now, then I am on to chart 3 and a complete change of lace pattern.

No, I haven’t forgotten socks #4 and #6. Nor the Clapotis. I’ll work on sock #6 and the Clapotis alongside the shawl. Sock #4 can wait a bit.

Of course - what I should really be doing is spinning.