Shalom & In the Pink

I finished up Shalom.


I much prefer a people model for FOs, but since the intended recipient is skinny and I am, well, not, I had to use a chair instead. I added a little embroidered OM (or at least the semblance of, I hope) to cover up a mistake in the border. Mom always said, if you've made a mistake you might as well show it off in style! To tell the truth, I actually like the way it turned out.



Oh yeah, and remember how I was bemoaning my stupidity at ordering so few skeins? It turns out that skinny people don't need as much yardage - I ended up using one less skein than I had originally ordered. Which means that now I have a shitload of Knit Picks Shamrock in Connolly. Go figure!




Sunday night I started working on In the Pink using the gorgeous Blue Heron Yarn featured previously in my blog. The pattern, despite the way it looks when you print out the directions is actually very simple and easy to follow so far. In fact, it's somewhat addicting, which could be the combination of the easy-to-memorize pattern, luscious yarn, and the fact that whatever fragrance was in the yarn shop where I purchased it still permeates the yarn so with each stitch I get a whiff of deliciousness. (FYI - The shop is Knit and Pearl).


I honestly believe this gem of a pattern would be queued and knit more frequently if it was written more simply and with the addition of pictures (currently the pattern is very wordy and has nary a photo). For example, I realized that on the center circle from round 12 through 54 it could have been written simply like this instead:

Round 1: (yo, k1) 3 times, k to 2 sts before marker, k2tog. Rep to end of round
Round 2: k to 2 sts before marker, k2tog. Rep to end of round
Repeat these two rounds until you have 27 stitches between markers. Then, repeat round 1 once more (29 sts between markers).

I think that a lot of knitters are intimidated when they have to follow page after page of instruction and don't always take the time to sit down and look at what is really going on with a pattern. Also more detailed and step by step pictures of the process are very useful for visual learners (myself included).



So far I've finished the central medallion and right side (picture above shows the center medallion at about halfway done - more pictures to follow when I have good lighting).

Tonight I began working on the left side and found that Rows 5- 7 didn't make sense. A quick Ravelry search lead me to these alternate instructions by Ravelrer KnittingToday which I have copied below directly from her pattern notes:

5) K3, (YO, K1) twice, YO, PM, SSK, (K1, YO) twice 3 times, SSK, YO, K1, YO, K3
6) K3, P24, K3
7) K3, YO, K1, YO, PM, K3, Yo, K1, Yo, M, SSK, K1, (K1, YO)twice 3 times, SSK, (K1, YO)twice, K3

I'm scurrying off to try this out now - hope it works!