I should listen to my knitting....

I should listen to my knitting. For a week it's been saying, "this shawl for your SIL is too long; you need to stop."

And I've continued mindlessly following the pattern- "I'm not done.... See the pattern says I have one more repeat and then the bind off." Of course, I'd look at it and say, "it does seem rather long..." and on I'd go knitting to the directions.

Then I ran out of yarn and the local yarn store didn't have any more. My choices were to go online hunting, beg on Ravelry, send Mom on a wild goose chase to Salem, or rip back to the last repeat.

So I took a serious looked at my project and thought, "this shawl is too long for my SIL; she'd prefer something shorter. I should have stopped with the last repeat." Hmmm... See, I should listen to my knitting! So I tore back, not to the last repeat, exactly, but to the end of the blue section and improvised the section leading up to the bind off.

This shawl has so many "design features" that it just barely resembles the original pattern. That's what happens when you forget to read the notes at the bottom which say "on the 4th repeat knit as in the 4th repeat of section 1", and when it says make 4 repeats of 5 and instead you make, or try to make, 5 repeats of 4. I realized my mistake after the first repeat but I left it with repeats of 4 instead of 5. In spite of all of this, I think it's a good project.



Pattern: Inspire me
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Hand paint Tonos This yarn contains no alpaca whatsoever but is a blend of Pima cotton and silk. I usually hate working with cotton because it makes my hands hurt but the silk gives the fiber enough give to be pleasant to work with. I did have a little trouble with the tension once in a while.
Needles: Knit picks nickle plated interchangeable, US size 4

Just for the record, the icord bind off takes FOREVER! The needle is at the halfway mark after 3 hours of working on it. Hopefully, I can finish it up tonight. This does still need to be blocked although I'm sure blocking with cotton/silk will be very different than blocking with wool.