Nov 5: Working this again with royal blue background and various golds. Some golds were used in the red version. The light green/yellow is a luxury sock yarn I ordered specifically for this piece. (I might even get a little pair of socks out of the deal as well.)
I just wanted something bright and playful and couldn’t see anything just right on my Spindrift or Jamieson and Smith cards.
Nov 14: coming along nicely I am going to run out of blue soon. A cone was shipped from Lerwick Shetland Islands Oct 20 so 4 weeks on Tues.
Nov 17:putting aside to wait for my royal blue. Shall finish Autumn Garden.
Nov 27: Still no cone. And no yarn shipped yet from local store I ordered a week ago. WTF!!
Dec 7: received yarn from Lerwick exactly 8 weeks after it was shipped.
Dec 18: First half now done. Now interrupting for Tapesrt KAL.

Feb 1, 2021: Hello I am back
Feb 5: Funny, but the interruption kind of cut back my enthusiasm for knitting this. Not for having it - I still want it so I will knit it. Have done about 35 rows since Monday.

Jan 8: returned 4 balls of blue 018 to storage

April 17: OK let’s finish this. I am about 3/4 complete. Should only take a couple of weeks. Finished Tapestry 6 and two Magnolias. Wrap this wrap.
April 23: Almost there. Working on final border pattern, then there is the two-strand rib, then crochet two halves together. And blocking of course. Maybe Monday..?
April 26: All done. Just crocheted the centre seam. Now to block. A few more notes on sizing and yarn quantity to follow.

Yarn quantity for royal blue: I used 2 complete balls of Jamieson Spinning royal, 2 complete balls of J & S 2-ply 018 from old inventory, 2.5 balls from new 8 balls of J & S 018 purchased from Black Sheep and 235 grams of my my 500 gram cone from Shetland wool brokers. A total of 397 grams. Not sure if the inventory boxes above are correct.

Size/Tension: Piece is blocking now so won’t have exact measurements until it dries and relaxes. I wanted this piece to be bigger for outdoor wearing than my red Christmas piece. I used 3.25m needle instead of 3m this time but piece was still coming out small. I believe the pattern suggests knitting the first 20-row chart, then 52 rows of B 1-2 chart, then the C 1-2-3 charts for 41 rows, then C 4-5-6 charts for another 41 rows, then C 1-2-3 one more time before final edge border of 16 rows. I believe a total of 211 rows before the rib.

To get the size I wanted I worked rows 1 - 20, B 1-2 for 52 rows, C 1-2-3 for 41 rows, C 4-5-6 for 41 rows, then repeated all C charts again for another 82 rows, then finished final motif for 6 rows, then 16 row border chart before rib. So a total of 37 + 82 + 82 + 6 + 16 258 rows. At the end I had about 450 stitches on each row. My final border chart is 15 repeats of 28 stitches plus a few stitches on each end.

Where pattern suggests reducing by 10 stitches on row 15 of final border pattern I reduced by 13. The stitch count noted here is for just one side of the shawl, meaning the top of the shawl is 900 and some stitches across. (but who is counting…)

This time I tried to crochet the left and right sides together a little farther in than on red piece so that pattern stitches do not appear as double. I think I prefer it this time.

Now dried after blocking and dimensions are 90” across the top and 45” high or deep or whatever. (centre seam line) This is close to specified pattern dimensions of 92” wide at top and 41” deep/high. Anyway I like it even if I had to knit more to get it. I despair I will ever work proper tensions.