By Slow Degrees

Still crawling along on the Wedding Ring Shawl, I have almost finished the second 66 row repeat. I approached rows 41/42, where I had the problem on the first repeat, with trepidation. I needn't have worried - of course the chart is not incorrect, of course the stitch count is not off. I don't know what I did the first time round because I counted, and re-counted, I tinked, re-knitted and tinked again and for the life of me I couldn't find any mistake, but yet the stitch count was still off by one. In the end I decreased the extra stitch away and carried on. This time round there has been no problem at all.

I want to knit on the WRS to the exclusion of all else but it is not physically possible. The concentration required is immense - there is no chance of watching TV and even listening to the radio can be a bit dodgy; "Don't talk to me, I'm counting" is the constant refrain and God forbid that the phone should ring. I therefore need a little light relief.

I sort-of-started the Romance Shawl from Dorothy at Fiddlesticks Knitting a while ago. The recommended yarn is Margaret Stove Artisan Lace Merino (the yarn I used for the Garden Shawl) but I just wanted to see how the pattern looked and to this end I took up some white Patons 2-ply Baby Wool. Obviously, this yarn is thicker than the Margaret Stove but I quite like the look of it and so have decided to continue with it. The problem of how to find a contrast colour for the double edging will be solved when I get to it. I might use a different yarn, I might dye some of the Patons, we shall see.

This is the progress so far:



The construction of this shawl is one that Dorothy uses in quite a few of her designs (it's used in Flirty Ruffles, for example) and it's one I really like. You cast on a few stitches at the centre back and increase four times on each public side row - twice on each side of the central two stitches and once at each outer edge. It's early days but I'm liking the look of it.

Just because I could, I knocked off this rosette:



I thought I might use it for something-or-other but I'm not sure what.

No picture of WRS - it's still skinny, it's still fine, ethereal, floaty, beautiful and it's just a bit bigger than it was.