The Shawl Thing

Have you noticed how in the last few years shawl knitting has evolved from lace over to fabulous colour and texture patterns? I certainly have and it's been reflected in my designs as well. I think these patterns are more accessible and make for easier carry around knitting projects. I've heard from quite a few knitters who have made my Belvedere Wrap pattern and I've been delighted to discover many of them have made it more than once. I guess it's not that surprising since I've made four myself with the original prototypes worked in stash yarn to the samples I did for Signature Yarns. 

Patrick has had some additional samples done in other yarns and here's a couple of examples. If you are interested please consider buying directly from him.  

 

And your point would be.....

I've always had lots of clothes, some would say too many. One of the reasons for this is, I view my clothing budget as part of my entertainment budget. After sharing my frustration previously with my De Quervain's Tenosynovitis perhaps I should add it to my health care budget too!

I've used various organization methods for my clothing and I purposely change them up every few years to see new combinations. I've organized by season, by item, by colour, by location in my home, by outfits and I've combined the previous methods in different ways. 

My shawls were mixed in with my hand knits with everything sorted by colour. I recently pulled the shawls and scarves out and stacked them in no particular order in one place. The plan now is to rotate the stacks so they all get equal love. I take one off of the top of the stack and when it goes back, it goes to the bottom. 

And no the photos do not show all of the shawls and scarves I've knit. I have been knitting for a long time you know. What? you're surprised by the number, and your point would be.......

There's how Many Stitches in a Shawl?

A while ago a non-knitting friend surprised me by asking "how many stitches knitting projects require"? I was probably taken aback since the usual question is "how long did it take". I didn't have a good answer at the time. 

I did a little Internet searching and came up with this quote from the Yarn Harlot. 


“ It is a peculiarity of knitters that they chronically underestimate the amount of time it takes to knit something. Birthday on Saturday? No problem. Socks are small. Never mind that the average sock knit out of sock-weight yarn contains about 17,000 stitches. Never mind that you need two of them. (That's 34,000 stitches, for anybody keeping track.) Socks are only physically small. By stitch count, they are immense.”
 
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much

I was recently doing one of the many checks and rechecks I do on a pattern before it goes for tech editing. I was using an excel sheet, set up with formulas, to calculate the numbers. I realized if I added in more rows, I could get the total number of stitches the shawl required. The result was 25,442. Wow, even less than a pair of socks, for a triangle shawl that is 32 inches (81 cm) at center point and 64 inches (162.5 cm) across top edge.That larger needle and looser gauge really makes a difference. Yet at the same time, it took me way longer to knit than a pair of socks would. I always knew that somehow knitting has the ability to warp the space-time continuum.