Never Nothing On My Needles

So, the Drops shawl is finished and is being enjoyed by both John and myself. Because the needle was empty, I had to cast on for another lacy project. There's one project that has been a challenge to me from the first time I saw it.

Ene's Scarf from Scarf Style.

I've cast on for it a few times. 375 stitches. I've frogged it as many times. For some reason, I could NOT get the beginning to work. I put the book away.

This week, I've been home sick for two days with a cold (and a reaction to the meds I was taking.. ugh! I am getting better, don't you worry!) and I decided to cast on (again) for Ene's Scarf. I'm using Drops Alpaca, a lovely soft yarn, in a natural brown shade. I got the stitch count correct. I did Row 1... correctly. Row 2 went just fine. Then, on Row 3, something didn't work. I couldn't figure out what was going on, so I frogged it and started again.

After casting on and frogging twice, I decided to take the chart and knit it up in another yarn, exactly as charted, with no repeats of the pattern, just to see if I could figure out how it all fit together.

I got the entire chart 1 finished and I knew what I'd been doing wrong. See the arrows? Those are double decreases. On the chart, each repeat starts with a double decrease. In my drug induced haze, I didn't realize that each double decrease takes a stitch from either side of a center stitch. The center stitch was the first stitch of the repeat, not the first of the three stitches used in a center decrease. Make sense??

Incidentally, the mini shawl will be completed as just that, a mini shawl. I may as well make something for the LPP (Little Plastic Person... see a couple of posts back), right?

Once I got that figured out, the rest was simple!

This is after Row 2, with markers marking each center stitch of the double decreases. After a while, they were so recognizable that I no longer needed them and they were removed. This morning, I finished Chart 1. Here's how it looks so far...

This yarn, like the alpaca I used for the Drops shawl is a joy to work with. It's so soft and warm, positively cuddly! I'm using 4.0 mm (US 6?) Knitpicks circs. The pattern calls for a knitted cast on using a double strand of yarn, but I used a crochet cast on with a single strand. I just like how it looks, more like a cast off edge, with enough stretch for blocking the points.

I'm having fun with this shawl; everything else I should be finishing has been pushed aside. As I said earlier, this is one pattern I've wanted to do for a long time; now is the right time apparently.