I’m puttering my way along on the latest welted garter shawl, and the rows just keep getting longer and longer. That’s entirely my own fault, of course, because not only did I design the thing, but I also couldn’t resist tinkering with the shaping just a tiny bit more in this version.

While I really like the purple version of the shawl, the wings are just a tiny bit too short to stay wrapped around my shoulders. That’s an important feature for me, so I thought I’d add a few more increases in this version to see if I could make them wrap more. This has two direct consequences: first, it is quite likely that I won’t love the new shaping and will end up ripping back and reknitting again (such is the life of a pattern-improviser). Second, it means that the rows get a lot longer a lot faster, and I’m getting a bit bogged down in the knitting of the middle portion.

To keep myself occupied, I’ve been dreaming up what to do with this yarn:

That’s the Shepherd’s Wool that I bought at the SPA knitting weekend in Maine last February. I really love my basketweave shawl, and am thinking that this yarn might just want to become another shawl along the same lines. I took out my stitch dictionaries the other day (for the first time in months and months), and had a look around. Nothing has solidified just yet, but I have some ideas floating around that need to be tested out.

Now, I just need to successfully finish the shawl so that I can start swatching!