The Shawl hates me.

Deep in my heart I know that yarn cannot hate. The rest of me knows absolutely this yarn hates me. From the moment I started winding it, it has been difficult, and troublesome. I firmly believe that it wants to be a shawl (it would not be treating the colour nearly so nicely if this were not the case), I know it is quite happy on the needles.

But maybe that is the problem. Maybe it is a yarn that likes to be worked. Maybe its afraid of ending up sitting in the closet to be taken out and stroked before going back onto the shelf. No yarn, this is not the case. You are meant to be a shawl of much use, and wear. You are going to be the shawl of warmth at my desk.

Then again, maybe it is clinging to its aspirations of grandeur. It is after all some seriously fine yarn, and it is amazing to work with, and so soft and smooth and warm that I await its delights with bated breath each morning. Maybe its wants to be with other wondrous works of beauty sitting on shelves in closets to be taken out and displayed in all its shawly grandness only on special occasions.

Sigh, I only know I love this yarn but I am incapable of counting it. Here and now, let me state that I will never attempt anything like this again without putting in markers all over the place. I should have had markers every 10 stitches all the way along. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache.

Saturday morning I contemplated completion. The yarn ball is rapidly decreasing, and I want to have enough left to make an i-cord for the neck edge. I decided to count, and yup, one side has 6 stitches more than the other. I made probably made the error 2 or 3 days ago. After a short search, I found the culprit, marked it, and then put the darn thing aside. I will frog later this week when I have the heart for it.

Lessons learned knitting a shawl are surely going to include how to love frogging without really trying. Its a highly under rated skill in knitting. And crocheting. However in crocheting, even the really long rows go a lot faster. the long rows on this shawl means at least 6 hours of reknitting.

On the upside, I didn't have a lot of time to knit anyway. It was Grey cup so there were a few extra mouths to feed, and it was time to work on some socks. The grey ones for my father-in-law are coming along nicely. No way am I going to make it using only 1 ball of grey yarn, so I decided that I will make the change to the slightly darker ball around the ankle. That way, both sock will have slightly lighter feet, and darker calves. They will at least match. To that end, I started working the new yarn on alternate rows. The slight heather of the colour is making the switch disappear, I'm glad to say. Now that I am on the calf, and fully in the darker yarn, you can't see the difference at all. Its a good trick and I'll do it again if I make the same error when buying yarns.

So, good things and bad things, it was a normal weekend for me. Knit, knit, undo. Just so long as the knitting eventually takes me somewhere, I'm good to go.