#8 Shawl, 2014

10/3: Took me two nights of TV watching to finished binding off 535 stitches using my now go-to bind off, Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, instead of the pattern’s bind off instruction, using a US6 needle. And another couple of hours of watching baseball playoffs to weave in what felt like countless ends of color changes of MC and CC!

Overall, the use of the CC neutralizes the MC if this makes sense which is what I wanted. I can wear this with a lot more color combos than if I flipped the colors. Surprisingly, the finished knitted fingering weight is warm and with the weather now in the 90s and the current heatwave not cooling down till next week maybe, I will have to wait later this Fall to wear this.

Blocked: 80 in (w) x 16 in (h) -- I came up with the rest of the same measurements (gauge) as what is listed on the pattern.

Would I recommend knitting this?

YES! This is a great travel knitting or knitting group project because all you knit is garter and its mindless to knit so you can focus on other things.

But if you are looking for a little challenge, learn a new stitch, this IS NOT the pattern for you when you get towards the end and knitting 400+ garter stitch/rows. I wouldn’t knit this as gift knit because it would kill me if the recipient would never wear this and leave it in a drawer.

9/29: This is pretty mindless knitting. At first I was worried that the MC: Duchess would be to dominating in terms of color after knitting the first 5 MC and CC repeats. But now almost at the end (Row 123 -- 481 garter sts!), the CC: Composition Book Grey softens this combo and makes this much more neutral in terms of overall look.

9/18: Conquered my Crocheting phobia!

Finally buckled down last night and learned how to do a provisional cast-on using a crochet hook. I did this on my 1st attempt.

Watched YouTube videos to learn how hold the crochet hook properly and cast on 3 stitches with the knitting needle and eventually create the chains (like you see in large 25 lb+ dog food bags or rice bags). Knit the 88 rows of garter then rotated the 88 rows 90 degrees. I followed the garter tab cast on method to get me through knitting 44 stitches on the long edge. Went back to watch YouTube to figure out how to rotate another 90 to carefully add and knit the original 3 stitches before removing the waste yarn (the key is to use smooth, non fuzzy yarn like cotton or linen).

9/17: This will be the 2nd Kourtney Robinson pattern I’ve knitted. I just finished knitting my first, looks more difficult than it really is, - Autumnal “His Golden Lair” prior to knitting Fibonerdy.