The Last Row is the Hardest

Ain't that the truth. The cast-off row of the Heirloom Shawl is long, long, long. We are trying to form a picot edge. We know that we are storing trouble up for ourselves in the blocking stage, but we do it anyway.

Basically, you cast off a few, cast on a few, cast off a few more and so on, and on, and on. I started this task yesterday afternoon. I started off thinking I needed to do the cast off very loosely. I tried that and it looked like a three-year-old's attempts at knitting. (Not that I have anything against three-year-olds but you know what I mean.) That had to come out. Realisation slowly dawned. In the picot forming part, you have to cast off tightly. In the cast off and move along the edge part, you have to cast off loosely. I don't think it came out too badly:


Edging

However, it did go on. By tea-time I was looking for displacement activities. I even considered cleaning the bathroom but discounted that as a step too far. Eventually, at 10.45am on Friday, 20th May I cast off the very last stitch. Now, it's not blocked, and it's not a brilliant picture, but, for what it's worth, here it is:



Heirloom Shawl unblocked

I took a few close-ups:



Heirloom Shawl Centre Back Motif Close-up


Bottom Point

Blocking will take place this weekend and "proper" pictures of the finished article will be posted on Monday.