WIP Wednesday: Dragonscale Shawl

Yesterday, I bought 6 skeins of acrylic yarn: two pink for my daughter, two grey, and the last two in shades of yellow, lemon and vanilla.  I'll talk more about the yellow ones on Saturday, because I don't intend to cast on before then.

The grey skeins were Simply Soft (hey, I'm a beginner, and a broke college student to boot) and they were intended to be for charity knitting, since my friend from church C--- loved my Palindrome in green and suggested that I make one much wider for a charity shawl.  However, when I cast on, I didn't have my cable needle on me, and it's such a wide cable that I didn't feel comfortable just trying to knit them out of sequence.  I was going to try to use a smaller DPN as a substitute for the day.  I cast on for 6 repeats although I really should have cast on for 8, as it turns out.  It's not nearly wide enough even at 80sts.  When I got 4 rows in, I liked the look of the abbreviated ribbing so much, that I decided to knit the whole thing in what I'm calling dragonscale, or abbreviated rib.  It's 2x2 rib that alternates on every third row, and that's what gives it the scaled appearance: the third row of purls bumps up, like it sits on top of the next row up.

The biggest problem I have is that it seems too narrow, only 15 inches, to donate as a prayer shawl, and yet it's very much too wide to be classified as a scarf. The saving grace, why I didn't rip it out at 2 inches in, is that I was absolutely in love with the pattern and wanted to just keep going.  (Also that the twist in Simply Soft sort of disintegrates if you rip.)  It's an absolutely gorgeous silver grey, and I'm already starting to plan the next project in Dragonscale in my mind.

For the future:
I bought a pretty supported spindle, and it's coming packed in fiber. When my friend J--- heard about this, she and her daughter gave me a huge bag of undyed wool.  Spinning Sundays, anyone?
Also, I think I'll produce a new section called F.O. Fridays, where I show you the completed work, a few weeks after the WIP Wednesday. And maybe, if you're lucky, Cast-On (AKA Pattern Search) Saturdays, which is where the yellow will come in.

For now, I'm sick, and feel like curling up with hot tea and my knitting.  And maybe watching TV.

WIP Wednesday

I decided to create a new feature, to help me update more regularly, called WIP (Work-in-Progress) Wednesday. The idea comes from redknits.wordpress.com, who has Covet Wednesdays, but I like the alliteration of WIP Wednesday better, and I have several WIP to document, anyway.

When I post a WIP here, it will be something that I'm actively working on. Today, I'd like to document my blue Fleegle socks, in Stroll Sport, that I began in early spring and recently began to actively knit again. They were meant to have a contrast short-row heel, but it evaded me for long enough (despite knitting a short-row toe adequately) that I sought out a new method.

I think the Fleegle is an elegant, but hard to measure heel. I'm using kfb because they're easier for me. My sock is probably going to be too long for my foot. She only tells you to start the increases during the period when "the sock reaches the part where your ankle meets your leg" but for some people, I suppose, that's too far back. I'm going to try it on when I get well past the turn, and if it flops around, I guess I'll have to rip back. But these *will* get finished. Pictures to come.