About the yarn: I chose Kidsilk Haze (590) yarn because I had it and because I love it. I do not have a lot of experience with shawl knitting, so I was slightly concerned about how a cobweb shawl drapes over modern street clothes… I clearly imagine it being magnificent over bare shoulders but over a cotton shirt? Well…may be it is just my lack of experience, but I decided to give a try to Kidsilk Haze. It reminds me of Orenburg shawls and I have experience wearing those. I imagine that it is going to be a rather heavy garment, considering that I will need > 20 skeins. Fuzz does not hide the pattern but gives a halo that I love.

Start: The most difficult part was the start (so far). Though I did swatches and considered myself trained to knit from this thin yarn, the beginning of the project was VERY hard. I did provisional cast-on using just a sewing thread. In my previous shawl project I used thick yarn and regretted it greatly. The fuzz from both yarns interlocked and it was close to impossible to separate them. So I used the sewing thread without a fuzz. It was a nightmarish cast on. Counting these stitches was so far the most difficult part. I finally used markers to mark every 20 stitches in order to count. Still i managed to make a mistake. It took me about 3 hours.

Center Progress:In comparison with the start, it is almost easy, if not for that many stitches in one row. I am doing Original Center and I find rows 29-38 the easiest and the fastest. Rows 1-11 are very similar but somehow they seem to go less smoothly (may be the trauma of my disastrous beginning makes them feel as slightly disturbed). However the most time I spend knitting the central rows of the pattern. What is especially good about Kidsilk Haze - it gives a luxurious feeling and it creates a wonderful pile of fuzz.

02/12/12 Five repeats are done. I notice that it is so easy to knit in the mornings and in the end of the day it gets harder, though I have a very good lamp. I guess, overall tiredness plays a role since this knitting requires such a concentration. At the same time: it takes away all my worries, because when I am knitting it, I stay present in the moment. This what I LOVE about knitting.

I have done some very rough blocking after a few repeats to see how wide this center is going to be and it seems to be around 32 inches. Each repeat is around 4 inches tall. Most likely I will do 9 repeats. I love this project!

02/18/12 I am on 7th center repeat. There is the whole mixture of thoughts and feelings about this project:
1) I absolutely love knitting it. May be it is Kidsilk haze effect, because I have never tried cobweb yarn, but I am enjoying this center a lot. I love how the yarn feels on my hands, how strong the thread it, the silkiness of it and the dry feeling (some yarns feels as if they are constantly wet. I do not like wet feeling).
2) Since it is so pleasant to knit, it is really painful to realize that I do have some doubts about this project, I am talking about the size of it. I have never knitted something very huge and I am not sure how the very big size can ruin the project, but I think, it might. But I do not know.
3) I finally calculated how much yarn I will need for this project and it comes to 28-29 skeins of Kidsilk. Somehow it made me feel better to know the final number. Otherwise I had a feeling that I will need all Kidsilk that is out there and this also was a worry for me.
4) I am not sure I will be blocking this shawl as the shawl should be blocked. When I knitted swatches, I blocked them and I could say that I liked them more unblocked than blocked - the weirdest thing, because normally the blocked lace looks MUCH better. I definitely will do some blocking, but probably will not stretch to the point of applying physical force to it as I did with my other shawls that were knitted from different yarns.

I definitely will be doing only 9 repeats of original center - it would be a perfect square. I can see how 12 repeats would produce a square as well, but with some vigorous stretching of the width to match the height. I do not want to do this stretching. I tried to stretch side to side and it transforms the pattern into something that I do not like.

02/20/12 I am on 9th repeat! Wow, it is huge and beautiful. Color is awesome. Purchased the rest of the yarn I will need, so there is no road back. I am planning to finish the 9th repeat this week before the end of Friday and do the cast on of 1200 stitches on a weekend. I have a few ideas how to do it, I will see.

Picking up stitches for the Border
02/24/12 Finally! Finished the last two rows of center today and started picking up stitches for the border. Surprisingly two sides were relatively easy. I placed markers every 8 stitches, so I would not need to think when to make a stitch. Counted them after I picked up - 300. Hurray. The side was a little bit more challenging. I did 9 repeats of original center. I folded the piece along this side in two and placed a marker ~ in the middle. Then each part I folded in two again, and then one more time. I had 8 parts. I needed 300 stitches. I figured that if I would pick up 37-38-37-38-37-38-37-38, I will have what I need. It was relatively easy to see on the short piece what has to be done to pick up 37 with additional needle, and then I would transfer them to the main needle while re-counting, and then again will pick up next 38 and transfer/recount them. Not so bad. Done.
The nightmare waited for me on the provisional cast-on. I knew that. Of course the sewing thread refused to be removed without cutting it in many places. I had to pick up stitches while the sewing thread was still on. It took forever. Done. Tomorrow I will need to knit this row where the provisional cast-on was, while adding stitches. I already know what to do and then the other side: also I will apply the same strategy as on the other side.

So far, the most difficult parts were the provisional cast on and the first few rows and then the getting rid of provisional cast on.

02/25/12 It took two attempts to pick up 300 stitches on provisional cast on side. Though I knew what I was doing, I was so tired of counting, that I started making mistakes. I counted and recounted and even had to undo the pick up, finally I finished it again, counted got 300+, then re-counted, and got 300-, then I recounted stitches that were in between of my markers (I placed markers every 20 stitches) and I found a few mistakes there. Altogether - 300! Phew.
Started the last side. It was easy after everything else. In the end I was exhausted. The worst part for me is this counting.

Border: Break rows are going well. I am trying to think how may rows I will be able to do a day… Not so many.

Ahhhh… those break rows broke me. The easiest rows in the world, but I had my first disaster so far. While knitting the last break row, I have noticed that the previous row is also knitted and not purled. Then I noticed that it was purled to some point and then in the middle of nowhere I decided to stop purling and proceeded knitting! This took me a while to fix. Finished those rows.

Before moving further I highly recommend: With a pencil number the base stitches on left corner and right corner charts. Do not assume that it is obvious that they have 30 and 30 stitches. And do not assume that each square has 10 stitches. Some of them have a blue vertical row that is usually a duplicate from the other chart. Do not assume that either. Pay attention to each blue vertical row because it is not always a duplicate. (added on 03/04/12)

Looked at the charts. It also took some times to figure out where to start. Lack of my experience with Shetland knitting is probably kicking in and I was just staring at this chart for a while, not understanding why there are 60-stitch repeat in the center and then behind the blue lines are something that gets cut off and then corner charts seem not to pick up from the end of the main chart… Then I stopped thinking about the chart and started thinking about the pattern and saw this chart differently. Hopefully, correct.

Also want longer circular needles. 32” work, but I think I will be more comfortable with longer. Too bad those needles are not being sold in stores in abundance. Sometimes it is so inconvenient, because I wish I could buy them tomorrow and use them. Instead I have to order and wait for 5-7 days. Grrr.

Border Chart: I am having difficulties in comprehending border charts. They consist of three parts that are suppose to grow into each other: corner, middle, corner. However according to charts it is not so. If I am starting knitting from the right corner and knit as chart goes there, then when I go to the main chart and start from the first stitch that is numbered as 1 (in blue), then I will not be matching the pattern that I just finished knitting on the right corner chart. What I think, is that the right corner chart has to be knitted not all, but just one part of it, that is separated by red/blue line and the rest of the chart…I am not sure why it is there…. The same, I think, goes for the main chart: what is actually should be knitted is the central part only of this chart that is 60 stitches (5 times) and is marked in yellow on the bottom of the chart. Left and right “wings” of the chart are also separated by blue lines and I suspect they are there for some reason that I am not sure what it is. This confuses me, I guess, it is my lack of experience knitting Shetland Shawls, because I have never met the chart that has parts that should not be knitted. I am pretty sure that my guess is correct because on one side I have 300 stitches. Instruction have this sentence that the border on one side consists of 60 stitch repeat which has to be repeated 5 times = 300. Plus increases before the corner stitch in every other row explain the growth of the corner chart from 0 stitches to 83.
My assumption is WRONG: I started knitting and after a few rows figured out that my assumption was not viable. The corner pattern consists of the increase stitches that are added every second row and the 1/2 of the main repeat, which is knitted with some modifications. So it seems to me now that one row of one side of the border consists of: 1- increase corner stitches, 2 - 30 stitches of the pre-corner repeat, then 4 main repeats (60 stitches each), 30 stitches of the other pre-corner repeat and then increase stitches of the corner. HOWEVER, it does not explain the 30-stitch repeat that surrounds the main 60-stitch repeat on the main pattern page. Now after undoing the whole row of the border (which takes longer than knitting it), I will not move my finger until I will figure out why those repeats are there. I will start with re-reading instructions. May be I have missed something. These two 30-stitch repeats are there for a reason.

Finally settling and knitting the border: I finally made peace with my doubts and am knitting the border. No, I did not figure out why there are two 30-stitch repeats on the main chart, but decided to knit as I think will work. So far I did not run into any disasters and I think that the border I am knitting will work. Longer (47”) circular Addi’s arrived and it is MUCH easier to knit than on 32”. I am making stitches by knitting in front and back of the loop and I knit the corner stitch even on “purl” rows. This border will take a loooooooong time. I am just on 10th row. But the yarn is so nice that I am totally in love with it and I am not dreading the endless 1200 stitches each row. I love every stitch.

03/04/12 -Row 22 of the border - in times it feels as if the project is not moving at all. This is my first time when I am knitting rows of 1200+ and I must say it is a great exercise in patience.

Another mistake in chart reading! Only on row 22nd it became obvious that I am off on one stitch. I was counting, re-counting, but nope, one stitch was not there. I started counting and re-counting “stitches” on the chart and I discovered where this come from. On the left side of the border slope, one of the squares (all other squares have 10 stitches) has 11 stitches. I am still not sure how it all works, but when I was setting the border, I established it this way: 30 stitches of the right slope, 4x60 stiches of the main repeat and 30 stitches of the left slope = 300. Obviously, this was not correct. On the left slope there is this one extra stitch that I have not noticed because I assumed that all squares have 10 stitches. When I was making extra stitch next to the corner stitch, I was making it in this fashion - I was using the 10th stitch and will make two out of it: one will be this 10th stitch and another will be 11th. But on th eleft slope it has to be done differently. How - I have no idea. I will be just making this stitch now when I discovered it. I hope other people will be more attentive and will not repeat this mistake.

03/05/12 Learn a new challenge - more complicated rows of border. To purl while doing yo and purl2tog is not as much fun as I thought. And it is not getting easier. I am resting now on knit rows.

Project is on hold
03/13/12 The project had to be put on hold. Sudden heat has fallen on the area where I live and I realized - there is no knitting possible. My fingers are like sausages, they barely can type, forget knitting. God help me to make it through summer.

04/07/12 I started working on it again. There was a break due to some life challenges that have taken absolute priority. However my knitting have taken a different mood: I am now just enjoying it instead of pushing it forward with gusto. I pick it up not every day and go for less than a row. May be two quarters or three, sometimes even one. Again, I must say how much I appreciate the yarn! I am thinking about knitting after this shawl is done some other Shetland shawl from “the real gossamer yarn”, but still am in doubts will I do it or not. Curiosity calls for it, I wish I could see “in person” the gossamer shawl, but I have never encountered one - only on the pictures. I imagine some humangous and thin white or cream knitted fabric wrapped in layers around a head and a neck… More for the spring or fall chilly nights. This one that I am knitting is definitely a winter child.

October 2012 The weather is finally somewhat cool and I opened the knitting season! I almost ruined my inspiration by trying to knit during summer months. Yuck.

Biggest challenge are purled rows, because after purled row my hands are aching. I do really rest on knitting rows.