No more shawls for me I’ve been to known to say……until I see another beauty. This time it was Jan’s newly purchased “Miss Babs Yowza – Whatta Skein!” yarn to knit the Brickless shawl designed by Martina Behm. Earlier I saw someone else walking the Stitches floor wearing a beautiful shawl and I captured the name of the pattern….Brickless. It’s a popular one. Yes…..I “accosted” many walking the Stitches West floor wearing knitted garments that appealed to me. (It was easy for me to do as I was working/retailing in MaggiKnits booth #314.) In total I collected the names of over 30 shawls.
I was going to wait a bit to start Brickless, but decided to forge ahead because one of our Friday knitting group (not Jan) came to the knitting table with questions last Friday. Deb and I also met briefly this past Monday morning to review/find a mistake in her knitting.
Now I have some tips that I’d like to share with any of you who embark on this knitting journey.
Do a gauge swatch. I know it’s a shawl and one would think….”oh, no worries – I get gauge”. In this case the label on the yarn says 4.5 st – 5.5st/in US 608. The pattern says 4mm (which is US 6) or size to produce gauge of 4 sts to inch. I thought the fabric that I saw need on 4mm was a little more dense than I would like for this shawl. Thus, I swatched on both size 7 and 8 needles. Swatching on size 8 produced the gauge of 4 st/in which is what pattern specifies and has a soft drape.
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There are 3 pattern sets – Lace, Garter and Rib – in each repeat. My mind is such that it wanders when I knit and relax which means I do a terrible job of keeping track of the number of rows (in my head) and the “benchmark” stitches at the end of each set. Notice my green cheat notes. I mark off each row and count the number of stitches so that I know the increases are happening sequentially. I like the idea of adding the expected number of stitches at the end of each pattern set – benchmark. This system also allows to more easily help anyone in our knitting circle.
- Now onto the next repeats (5 more of 1st 3 pattern sets) before finishing with one lace set.
Happy knitting!
Skein Lane - IN THE LOOP 