++++ must remember to tell mum that it needs to be laid out and the dark sections sprayed down well with vinegar water and allowed to set b/f it is next washed+++++

Edit: yyaaaaaargh! Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water!
So very disappointed with myself! I knew that it is risky to put intensely died colours and very light colours close to each other in a garment without washing the yarn separately. I even knew that it can be even more of a problem when fibres other than wool are used, as in this yarn! I decided on simply going with my previous experience, though, that it hasn’t been problematic for me with other yarns that I have used, and gave in to my desire to get on with knitting, and didn’t wash the yarn first. Guess what happened - yep!!! The darkest colour has run and stained my gorgeous lightest colour! Waaaaaah! (That’s me crying and berating myself). I had given it a soak for about an hour with a couple of drops of Eucalan (which is a product similar to Soak wash) and had noticed some discolouration of the water, but I didn’t notice the actual staining until after I had spun the excess water out (via a laundry bag in the spin cycle) and taken it upstairs to lay out for blocking. Not sure what the best course of action was, but not wanting to let it dry and set, I took it back down to the laundry, rewet it, rinsed more excess dye out several times and decided to try just patting some Eucalan into the stained areas on the lighter yarn. I’m not sure how much that worked or not - it might have been better in running water - but more Eucalan into the soaking dish resulted in the release of more dye from the dark yarn. At this point, I decided to cut my losses and just rinsed it a couple of more times to get rid of any extra Eucalan and also try to distribute the staining a bit more evenly, tossed it in the wash bag and put it through the spin cycle, and brought it up to block and dry. It will be interesting to see the result. Needless to say, I am very upset with myself! I just hope it still turns out nice enough to give to mum for her birthday …

Overall thoughts
The finished object is lovely and the pattern well worth it for either beginners who are up for learning a couple of new manoeuvres or for any more experienced knitters who are after an easy knit. I especially appreciate the subtle lace touches and sparse slip stitch patterning, both of which could be omitted, I think, if you were after a more basic design - but I love them! I think the soft undulations that the occasional, sparse lace creates in some of the linear design aspects are just beautiful!

I really would like to give the pattern five stars for both the overall rating and the clarity rating, but there were just a couple of things that I feel could be clearer in the pattern. The first of these things was to do with how the lace parts are written. Rather than simply stating “repeat from the * one more time”, the pattern says something like “repeat from the * until …… sts remain” or “… until five sts before the marker”. It gets a bit silly later in the pattern when the number of sts “remaining” reaches ~95. I gave up counting fairly early on and just assumed that in the few rows where the lace patterning occurs, there were two lace motifs either side of the double decrease. There is no way I was going to do just a few sts, count to the end, do a few more, count to the end again etc etc when there are that many sts to count. I suppose I just think that there are ways of writing out lace that are better and that result in a better knitting experience. I also think that some suggestions on how to best carry the yarn up the side would be beneficial. The other clarity issue I had with the pattern was the double decrease. The pattern calls it a CDD (centred double decrease) but describes it as having the slipped sts as being slipped purlwise. This does not result in the double decrease being centred. I actually did a traditional CDD throughout (stitches slipped together knitwise) instead of following the pattern suggestion.
I know that all of this seems rather persnickety, but having clear instructions makes such a huge difference to the experience when knitting from a pattern. I feel really fortunate that I am experienced and confident enough to just do what I thought and have it come out reasonably, but not everyone has experience and a bit of confidence. I actually think this would be a fantastic pattern for a fairly new knitter, but it could be even better.

Mum would like another shawl like the yellow one that I knitted for her out of viscose/bamboo yarn. She chose the pattern and said she would like a “cream or fawn” colour… I am thinking that I might knit it for her birthday …

Choosing colours
I am thinking that having the two corners that drape over the shoulders (and are most likely to get dirt on them) in a colour other than something very pale would probably be a good idea. Looking at the shawl schematic, that would be c1 and c2. At the same time, there probably needs to be decent contrast between all of the colours b/c they all seem to be intermixed in the design. I am thinking maybe Dark Parchment as c1, Espresso as c2 and White Peppercorn as c3. This way each of those corners will be a darker colour but the overall shawl should not be too dark b/c the lightest colour is kind of concentrated in the centre. There doesn’t seem to be as much c2 (or it is possibly just dispersed a bit more than the other two colours, rather than “clumped” into blocks), either, so having my darkest colour as c2 shouldn’t make the overall shawl too dark

Gauge from small garter swatch (unblocked) is 23.5sts to 10cm and 11rows to 2.5cm (ie, ~23.5 x 44) on the suggested 4mm needles … yes, I am a tight knitter. The pattern gauge is 18 x 36 blocked. I do really like the fabric of the little swatch but I am thinking that going up a needle size might be a good idea in order to get a decent size. Couldn’t find my 4.5mm needles so had to go up to 5mm, unfortunately - but I think it will still be ok …

The pattern states to perform CDDs slipping the first two stitches together purlwise but I’ve always slipped them knitwise. I am continuing to do them as I usually would but I’m not sure how that might affect the look … or maybe it was a mistake in the pattern, I’m not sure …
I have just clipped the marker to the centre stitch column of the CDD b/c having to move its position every right side row was going to drive me batty. It also serves to remind me which is the right side of the fabric. I will just need to remember where it should be placed when countingstitches.
I really like how the designer’s shawl and a couple of the other projects have tiny holes along either side of the double decrease line, but I’m not quite sure how this was achieved! I am thinking that the combination of the way they perform the double decrease, their tension across those sts, their overall tension and maybe some help from blocking must be how they appeared … and/or they might have actually twisted the sts involved in the double decrease??? Not sure … I might have to experiment a bit at a later date …

Oh dear! I think all of those knit stitches to start with anaesthetised my brain! The (very simple) feather and fan in section B is giving me grief!!!

Preferring this yarn on the centre-pull balls from the ball-winder (as opposed to the hand-wound ball). I wasn’t sure whether the high linen content might make it too twisty for that, but it is fine. I am missing my exceptionally pointy Chiagoo or Hiya Hiya needles, though - blunt needles simply do not mix well with my style of knitting and this yarn. Never mind!!!

So, I’ve learned that I’m not really a fan of endless knit stitches! I tend to prefer the fabric of stockinette, generally speaking - although, garter can be lovely and squishy - and, when knitting flat, a few purl rows break up the monotony a bit. I am thinking that I might insert a few random, narrow stockingette stripes just in the broader colour sections. This will break up the monotonous knit stitch for me (I am more likely to make mistakes when my attention wanders b/c of monotony) and I also think I am likely to appreciate the somewhat subtle variation in texture in the finished item that a few narrow stockinette stripes will provide. I am hoping that this won’t eat up too much yarn …

Changed the C3 stripe in section E to stockinette simply by purling the wrong side row rather than knitting it.

Section F
One of the things I was really liking up to this point was how neat the edges were with the first and last sts of every row being kfb. Unfortunately, the shaping of the shawl relies on the kfb being stopped at this point for one edge! Rather than have one edge revert back to my usual sloppiness, I decided to attempt to keep the kfb edges by:
RS row - start with kfb, k2tog, cont with pattern
WS row - pattern to last 3 sts, ssk, kfb
So far, so good - but I haven’t done many rows.
Also, I will need to have a good think about how to proceed when the line of CDDs meets the edge.

Section G
C3 stripe changed to stockinette (matches section E). Note that for the edge stitches on the rows that I purl, I still did garter. I.e.,WS kfb, purl to last three stitches, ssk, kfb.

Section H
Modified to include a stockinette stripe, as follows:
Where the pattern says to rpt rows 9 and 10 eight more times, on the 4th, 5th and 6th rpts I purled the WS row (edge sts still in garter). This provides a bit of a break from the sea of garter. Also, b/c anything that is a crosswise stripe emphasises the angle created along the double decrease line, I think it actually provides another emphasis for that. There is also the fact that my C3 colour has only extremely subtle variation in tone/colour, so wider expanses of it can certainly hold a bit more subtle textural interest from the stitch pattern without there being an adverse impact on the beauty of the fabric it creates … I suppose I was worried about the broad expanse of my C3 yarn being comparatively boring in the context of the rest of the garment ….

Section I
Small stockinette stripe added by purling the WS row on the 5th rpt of rows 5 and 6

Slip stitch rows
I found that my st count must have been out at the row where the slip stitch pattern is added. I made sure that whatever stitch I had immediately b/f the double decrease was the same stitch as I had immediately after the double decrease, and this worked well! When doing the wrong side row for this, I made sure to slip the same stitches that were slipped in the preceding row, and knit the the stitches that were knitted. This results in lovely elongated stitches. If, when you did the wrong side row, you were to do the opposite and slip the stitches that had been knitted in the previous row and knit the ones that been slipped, the effect would not be anywhere near as noticeable.

Lace sections
As far as I can tell, the lace parts are all the same feather and fan pattern, with two “fan” motifs either side of the double decrease line that spans the entire garment. For all sections with lace except the last one, there are only two rows that have the patterning. The last section that has lace has it in three rows. Each motif is basically over twelve stitches, with three decreases followed by six increases then the last three decreases - leading straight into the second motif for that side of the main double decrease line of the garment. This is then repeated on the other side of the double decrease line of the garment. The reason I am detailing this is that I found the way that the lace sections were notated to be a bit cumbersome (see below)

Notes on clarity
Lace
Double decrease

Unblocked and I stretched gauge is around 17-19 sts and 38 rows to 10cm in garter stitch… I was VERY lucky that my skeins of yarn had plenty of yardage and I didn’t run out of yarn, given what my gauge ended up being. A 4.5mm needle really would have been a much “safer” option for me.

Unblocked (and unstretched) but finished size = 290cm x 67cm (along top edge and from point to top edge, perpendicular).

I would like to try:

• playing more with the kfb edge sts - tension, gauge, fibre etc
• A stockinette version of Marlow
• Trying out the double decrease as slipped purlwise rather than knitwise, just to cement the difference in my mind and see how it affects the drape/visual appearance (there is every chance that it might look quite decorative in this instance … but it won’t be “centred”, it will just be a double decrease)
• In the stripe sections, you could mirror the stripes around the C3 (NB: I just realised that on the black and white schematic page there is a notation that the stripes are mirrored - but the actual pattern directions say that)
• A little bit of textural variation in the first few sections
• How would this style of construction go worked backwards??? Ie, can you cast on a larger number of sts, have the “centre” line as double increase, have one edge persistently decreasing throughout and the other edge first allowing the central increases and then also decreasing to nothing …