Swatches have been knitted: first on 3.75mm straight needles. I began to panic, when checking yardage, that I would have insufficient Kelpie at this gauge. So I ordered up another ball (and some spinning fibre, to make the postage worthwhile *ahem*)
Five minutes later, I looked at my work: perhaps a little too open?
I frogged the swatch and knit another, on 3.25mm circs ((Addi Lace – one point of which has tarnished and I am Very Annoyed about that!))Â (as suggested by Evelyn). I’m still not convinced, and I think 3.5mm would be best (but I don’t have any of those). On balance, the tighter gauge is better than the looser, so I’ll go with that, although I really had hoped to knit on straight needles for speed and comfort. Scouring the house for empty 3.25mm straights yielded nothing, alas.
Of course, now I am knitting on the right size needles, I’ll have plenty of yarn for the shawl and really do not need that second ball…
Which means, if the two balls are not too dissimilar, I shall most likely find myself knitting some extra pattern rows into this shawl.
Evelyn Clark’s patterns do make very small shawls. This one is arranged such that extra 12 row repeats may be added at will, with no mathematical struggling about the border ((unlike the case of the Swallowtail)). So, given a fair day and a following wind…. plus matching yarn and a lack of boredom with the all-over pattern ((I have heard tell that it may sap the will to live)) I might just as well keep on knitting. My gut instinct tells me that if I do not find some straights to work with, I am highly unlikely to do extra repeats on circular needles. How is the exchange rate today? Can I get some Signature needles yet? ((Oh, no, I can’t. I forgot. They spammed me on Twitter, so I’m not allowed to buy anything from them now.)) … ((Maybe I should forgive them…))
Tomorrow is the start day.
Hopefully I can get a couple of repeats in tomorrow but that isn’t looking very likely (it’s a Puzzle Week this week) and I have plans for the weekend that may prevent much progress being made. Monday night is the beginning of this year’s Craft Club meetings: I could take the poppies with me but it’s lousy lighting in the Community Room and the yarn is somewhat dark/dull ((but in a very good way!)) and it’s maybe not quite the thing to take with me… I also have another trip to town looming, and it certainly doesn’t look like ferry knitting to me. I can see that I shan’t be rushing this project! (Which is a shame as I was hoping to use its impetus to clear that damn Laminaria out of the way as well.)