Note to Self. Remember to Make Notes!

Last year I visited the Sheep Shop in Cambridge and came away with 2 skeins of the most gorgeous Lotus Tibetan Cloud 100% yak laceweight yarn. It’s sooo soft and dreamy I just couldn’t resist!

I knew right away that it wanted to be a pretty little shawl and thought I would have another go at designing a pattern. I decided to make a thin crescent shape shawl, one that increases 4 sts at the beginning and end of each right side row and 2 sts every wrong side row. After looking through some stitch pattern books I was drawn to a diamond design shape ‘Starlight Lace’ from the Barbara Walker – Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns book.

So armed with charting software, notebook and pen I started to put the pattern together and knit the shawl as I went along, writing everything down as I did it…well I say everything… I kind of wrote things down on various notebooks, on my phone, on scraps of paper and on the computer pattern too and I even remember on a couple of occasions thinking ‘I don’t need to write that down because I’ll remember that’. Of course you will Jem! What was I thinking….and to make matters worse I finished the shawl and then decided to wait another 6 months before attempting to write the pattern up

I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago, after searching high and low for a missing notebook and swatches…I couldn’t put it off any longer or it would never get done!

And it wasn’t that bad once I got back into it, the bits of scribble I had started to make sense and I was eventually able to piece the pattern back together. I did have to cast on quite a few swatches though mainly to keep track of the edge stitches as the stitch count varies on some rows.

But I think I cracked it. It’s now gone for tech editing so fingers crossed it’s all ok….

And here’s a little peek at the final design. Next step is to get some decent photo’s 🙂

I’m off to buy some more notebooks tomorrow 😉

Happy knitting! x