That didn't go like I thought it would

I had plans for the weekend.  Nice plans.  There was a fibre festival in central Alberta this weekend, and I had plans to go.  Right up till Sunday morning, I had plans to go.  But reality reared its ugly head and said 'you may not go'.  So I didn't.  My loss is of some interesting local hand dyed fibre and batts.  On the upside, I conserved 4 hours worth of gas for my car and the same of knitting time.

And I did, indeed knit.

Friday, I was busy avoiding an error on my shawl.  I had a good sleep and Saturday morning, I found the source of the problem, two threads worked together in a row that wasn't supposed to have anything worked together, and merrily went on my way.  All the colour gradients are done and I am back to sheeps grey.

Next up is the edging.  I wanted to check how large this shawl is so far.  I put it on a separate needle and laid it out at it's natural width without being blocked and it's about 45 inches wide.  I don't like blocking to within an inch of a shawls life, so I knew I needed more than the narrow edging the pattern has.  A wider edging meant I had to go find more yarn.  I am already well into the third skein of  the Sheeps Grey Briggs and Little Sport and while I might have squeaked it out if I had stayed with the original border, this wider border meant I had to dig for the 5 skeins of Sheeps Grey I had set aside for a sweater project.  

Luckily, the skeins match well enough to be getting on with.  It's always a pleasure to dive in but I will have lots to do on my breaks from knitting today.  

I went though all my books and picked a nice wide edging with rose leaves in it.  I knit that edging twice and then again for good measure and then decided that this is a large shawl and I did not need to knit something that made me want to poke my eyes out and went off to find another edging.  

I ended up opting for a wider, more open version of the sawtooth type edging of the original pattern. For sure it is a pattern that will be easier to read right from the get go, and I have already had practice finding small errors and have a feel for where the small errors might creep in.  I have only had to reknit a part of it.  Twice.  Third time I was golden.

I have one complete repeat done, and though it is a little hard to see, I am not sure I have it right yet.  

I picked this edging because it was lovely and open and with its clear shapely point, would be easy to block.  I added two extra columns of faggoting to the border where I join shawl and edging  because I like the way it looks around the body of a shawl. I am very pleased with that choice but I am thinking of pulling it back and starting over to simplify the edging somewhat.  

This edging feels oddly fussy to me for what is simple sort of hap. I love the width of the edging, but it's almost too much open work after the very plain garter stitch center.  Its possible that my  thicker yarn means the lace loses some definition.  One of the options the book author mentions would be to knit the inside triangle in plain garter stitch and only do the open work pattern on the outer  points.  That small bit of a solid point will set off the lovely outer point better, I think and the extra faggoting I added will help keep the lacy open feel of the original.

The other part is that if I do that inner section in garter, I completely avoid the area where I seem to be making all the errors.  

So off to start.  Again.  It didn't go like I thought it would but it did go.  That is just the way it is sometimes.