Lessons learned

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an extremely detailed-oriented person and appreciate clear instructions.  Okay, I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, too.  The odd thing though is that I don't always like to read those instructions or if when I do, I sometimes don't read them from start to finish or all the way through.  Weird, right? A few weeks ago, one of my best friends Susan asked if I would knit a birthday present for her mother, a talented knitter who tends to never be gifted hand-made knits because she can make anything for herself.  I jumped at this chance -- what a great challenge and honor to knit a beautiful object for a knitter who will know exactly what went into the making of the gift.  I knew right away that I wanted to make her the Scalene shawl.

(in Malabrigo Rios)

The designer, Carina Spencer, suggests many different types of yarns to knit the shawl, and because I love its texture, I chose Malabrigo Rios. I've never knitted with this yarn before, and I'm a huge fan now.

I bought the pattern, gave it a quick once over, pulled out my needles, and cast on.  For some reason (which I still can't really explain), I hit snag # 1 instantly.  Carina writes great notes and very explicit details, but I kept reading her instructions incorrectly.  Perhaps what I should really say is that I over read her instructions and added steps that weren't there.  She is a truly generous designer and over that first weekend, emailed me back and forth helping me through my brain freeze.  Once I understood what I was doing, I hummed along.  Now to snag # 2:  I love knitting with Rios but I didn’t realize that I was knitting the large gauge until I was well into the project. I kept thinking to myself that the shawl was feeling awfully voluminous and heavy! And then I read re-read the pattern from the beginning and realized that I knitted twice as many rows as needed for the gauge and had to frog half of it. I had to laugh (or I would have cried) and fortunately, getting the project back on my needles wasn't as tough as it originally felt it would be.

There were no more snags after that -- you can imagine how carefully I continued to read the pattern -- and I love, love, love this shawl.  The tuck detail is so special and I'm really happy that I chose Rios as the shawl is cushy and soft and cozy. I hope Susan's mother loves her hand-knitted gift as much as I enjoyed making it for her.

So two lessons learned -- 1) always read a pattern from start to finish before beginning; and 2) even experienced knitters make mistakes!