Tuesday 24 January 2012

Casting on...and on...and on

I finished the main portion of Joanne's second cria shawl last night. It was excellent timing too - literally five minutes before the end of the movie I was watching. This morning I wound the remaining skein into two equal balls to start the edging.

The edging for the Haapsalu shawls is worked in 2 pieces, one side plus one end at a time, and there is an actual formula, requiring a calculator, to figure out how many stitches to cast on. According to the notes, the edging is knit in two pieces as more stitches becomes difficult to fit on the needle, and longer needles or circulars are best for this part. After doing the math, I suspect this may be an understatement. My cast on row was 331 stitches for each half of the shawl. It took 20 minutes, by the clock, to cast on for the first half.

I have decided that I am very glad of 2 things. One, that because of my handspun not being as fine as their yarn, that I only had 2 pattern repeats across, rather than the 4-5 I would have needed (and the proportionally larger number of stitches for edging, then). And two, that the edging is written in garter stitch and not stockinette, so at least I don't have to purl back across all those stitches. I know I could do it - I suspect previous shawls have had at least as many edge stitches. It just feels like so much more when you actually count them.

Now to cross my fingers and hope there's enough yarn to finish the edge.

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