When last you saw the shawl, it was happily admiring the mountain lake and for a week, you watched the shawl progress.
The Shawl Tale--the Prequel:
It was cast-on in NYC. I knit a few repeats while traveling north on the way to a mountain vacation but around Albany, NY, I decided the fabric created by using size 5 needles looked like saggy upper arm skin.
I then ran into a yarn shop in Saratoga Springs, NY yelling, "This is an emergency! You're the last outpost of civilized knitting before we enter the North Country and I need size 4 needles."
Size 4 needles were purchased. And, because they were there, size 6s too. Both Addis lace.
I then cast on (without frogging the size 5 saggy thing) the size 4s and spent vacation knitting away.
UNTIL
on the last day of vacation, I looked at the fabric and thought that it was too dense, too tight, too small just too. . . too. . .
So I went back to knitting on the piece first started on the size 5s. Decided that the saggy upper arm really was the look I was aiming for. But that it would look saggier and better
IF
I continued knitting it on the size 6 needles.
It's now post-vacation. Last night, I compared the size 5/6 fabric with the size 4 fabric.
That's the 5/6 on top and the 4s on the bottom. Yes, really it is. I've checked and re-checked.
What the. . . ??!! The fabic knit with the size 4s appears to be looser and saggier.
How did this happen?
Maybe more relaxed during vacation = looser tension?
I'm now in a quandary and am wondering:
Size 4s to size 5s for a couple of repeats to size 6s for half. Continue the other half on 6s. Pretend to be on vacation. Run water and have hubster quack like a duck. Graft the two pieces together. Ends will match. Blocking may even things out. Or not.
Anyone have a better ending to this tale?
3 comments:
Thanks for that excellent descriptive reference. I'm quite familiar with saggy upper arm skin (and I have a good acquaintance with ripply above-knee skin as well!) HOW relaxed were you up there?? Great post!
LOL
I think you better get hubby to get those seldom seen bare feet out again, maybe that will help.
Doh.
I'm guessing it has more to do with working on the smaller needles - this sometimes, I think, makes us knit more loosely, even if we're not on vacation; just handling the sticks.. I think.. um.. Oi. I do not have a better ending, but I wish I did!
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