As the deadline for the ColourMart Spring Contest neared, I gave up swatching ahead on Little Sister and focused all of my knitting, and some of my sleeping, time on The Shawl.
That was probably mistake number three.
Shall we back track?
Mistake Number One was not swatching in the first place! I am not 100% happy with the fabric I am getting, it is a bit lacier than I usually go for. Usually I make fairly large swatches and get all of the major design elements in before committing to how a design will work out. (Although I will say that for socks, usually the first sock is the swatch, but if I have to rip it out I do!)
Mistake Number Two was, if I was not going to swatch I should have at least stacked all the charts one on top of each other and then flipped them so that I could see how the final design would look in total, not just in pieces. That would involve some fairly hefty spread sheets as the shawl is well over 500 stitches at this point and most of the design elements are either side of the spines.
As I did neither of these, very wise, things, mistake number three was assuming that I had it under control and focusing all my attention on The Shawl instead of splitting it between her and her Little Sister after row 179.
Today I came to the conclusion that there is a big design flaw, one that I can fix, very easily, if I want to rip out 71 rows of a 268 row shawl and redo the end to the border.
For a shawl that is officially due by 12:30 am (local time) on Sunday.
I put it to the vote on the ColourMart Lovers Group and the people who weighed in, were all in favor of...knit the 16 more rows I have to go to finish. Block it. Photo it. Mark it complete and then either rip it out and fix it, or knit a whole separate shawl the way I now envision it.
Advantages to finishing and ripping : I make the deadline, only have to re-knit from row 179.
Disadvantages: no lifelines, I will be picking up raw stitches, but having blocked it hopefully runners would be at a minimum.
Advantages to finishing and a do-over : I can use a different size needle and maybe add beads for a comparison, then show side by side on the design change as an educational opportunity.
Disadvantages: That is a whole lot of knitting.
So tell me, would you butcher the completed shawl to make it right, or knit it again with a different needle size or even a totally different yarn? While you decide on that, I am going to eat dinner, pour myself a glass of very dry red and get some of those last 16 rows knocked out.
No pics today....believe me, it just looks like cat barf at this point of the game!
~M
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