I know from handwinding this yarn that, while there are some slight variations in the thickness, it’s mostly on the thin side of the fingering range. Because of that I’m starting with 3.75 mm needles to see what type of fabric I get.

December 29, 2017: Finished picot set-up and once through the main chart which adds wider fancy border; yes, 3.75 mm needles are giving me lovely fabric. So onwards! (after I frog what I’ve done and start over just because the base of one end stitch of one of the four lattice stitch 8-crosses I’ve done looks a little funny, as if the triple YO it anchors was wrongly oriented on the needle. Minor and certainly not visible to anyone who didn’t have their nose up amongst the stitches but I know it’s there and this is very special yarn and I want to do this perfectly)

Also, have decided to do solid section in garter stitch instead of stockinette.

January 8, 2018: Progressing nicely. This pattern is perfect for this yarn, texturally as well as colourwise. I’ve seen in project notes that some people are knitting the wide border according to the traditional instructions for Indian Cross Stitch. While the result is similar the pattern instructions actually have a couple of construction differences from that method; the YO loops are between the knit stitches instead of being pulled through them and the long loop stitches created by the yarnovers end up being knitted in a different order than in Indian Cross Stitch. I’m following the pattern instructions to the letter as the designer’s version puts a bit of a 3D twist into the crosses and gives the whole border a more chaotic ruffled effect (since that border is one of the things I love about this design it’d be silly to not follow the instructions to get this result)
Should add that I found using a couple of double pointed needles was the easiest way for me to work this part of the border; one to pick up the eight stitches from the left needle as I dropped the yo loops and the other to lift those stitches over each other into the required order. Then knit off the double pointed needle onto the right needle and repeat again for the second set of eight. My two main needles had just enough grip on the yarn that I could let go of them with no fear of them sliding out of the rest of the stitches and the double pointed needles I used were bamboo so also had decent grip.

January 14, 2018: At 33 pattern repeats and 42 stitches in the garter section I’ve used up 28 grams of yarn. (27% of the skein used)

January 23, 2018: 47 pattern repeats, 57 stitches in garter section, 46 grams of yarn used, 56 grams remaining. (45.09% of skein used)

January 26, 2018: At 58 stitches in garter and 54 grams of yarn I knitted two four-row pattern repeats with no increases; this puts me at 50 grams of yarn remaining (just past the halfway mark). I could do a third no-increases repeat which, theoretically should leave me 48 grams for the decreasing half of the shawl but that leaves me zero margin for error. Since there were a few thicker yarn sections in the first half that would have skewed the weight (and even a fraction of a gram matters) I think I’ll play safe and start decreasing without knitting that third no-increases repeat. I do not want to end up tinking half a shawl because I don’t have enough yarn to finish the last three stitches.

April 1: Finished! With two grams of yarn left over! Did have a horrible feeling, entering into the final transition into orange, that I had miscalculated and was going to run out of yarn; that edging is deceptive and looks like it’s using more yarn than it actually is.

April 7: And blocked! About 170 centimetres, give or take a millimetre, from tip to tip.