Casting On and Binding Off

What a crazy weekend! I intended to post yesterday (though not for Spinning Sunday -- spinning activity has been suspended until I finish my Ravellenic Games project), but there was so much to do that I just didn't have the energy for it once I finally got to sit down last night.

Though the official cast on time was 4 p.m. Eastern, I didn't actually get to cast on for my Ravellenics project until about 8:30 on Friday night, which is also when I sat down to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics (I was DVRing it and eventually caught up to the live broadcast at about 10:30 or so). As a reminder, I am knitting the Wilshire Shawl out of one skein of tosh lace in the colorway Fathom, a deep royal blue. On Friday night, I managed to get through the first two charts (the first one being mainly a set-up chart and the second all stockinette with yarnovers at the beginning and end of right side rows and on either side of the center two stitches). On Saturday, I took it to my LYS and got through Chart 3, which is the first lace chart, and then yesterday afternoon and evening I worked on Chart 4, which is another stockinette section. I finished the last row right before bed last night and counted my stitches before putting it away only to discover I was two stitches short due to omitting two yarnovers at the center near the beginning of the section. You can see the spot where the split ring marker is here:

I had enough trouble finding it that I think I'm going to leave it be and just fudge it to fix the error; it's easy enough to plug in an extra stitch in an unobtrusive spot, and I can probably do some creative pinning when blocking to make the spot where the YOs are missing less obvious. I'm loathe to frog that much anyway considering it's about 3-4 hours of knitting time that I likely can't make up.

I didn't work on the shawl as much as I could have this weekend because I was also busy trying to finish up my second Peckish shawl. I had finished the stripes on Thursday evening with only about two or three yards of Candlewick to spare, so then all that was left were the long rows of the border and the bind off. Unfortunately, I ran out of Stovepipe with about 50 stitches left to bind off. Theoretically, I should have had enough, because I used the same amount of both colors in the first iteration, but I guess my gauge was off a little or the skein was a little short. I found a bit of leftover yarn in my stash that was a reasonably good match and used that to finish binding off, though, and I think it blends in well enough (I'm hoping no one will be examining my shawl that closely!), but I'm still a little irked -- though I guess I certainly got my money's worth for the yarn! It also reassures me that my yardage estimates in the pattern are not outrageously high; though a couple of my testers have used significantly less, I seem to have used roughly the same yardage both times, so my slightly higher yardage requirements should enable those who knit the pattern in the future to avoid my misfortune.

Yarn supply problems aside, I'm really happy with how this came out and I just love the color combination, though it's not my usual.

From here on out, it's all Wilshire Shawl, all the time. I'm taking the day off on Friday and expect to get a good six hours in at my LYS working on it (assuming my hands are up to the task). It's moving along at a good clip now, but I know that as I get into it further, the rows are going to get longer and longer.