Hello my pretties! I hope there are still some of you out there who are knitting along with me. If you haven't started, or haven't completed the "should drop section", here are the previous diaries: Irtfa'a Shawl Knit Along #1, and Irtfa'a Knit Along #2: Reading Charts. If you're interested in jumping in, the pattern can be downloaded for $9 here.
Although the shawl itself knits up very quickly, figuring out this pattern is… an adventure, and nowhere more so than in the shawl body, patterned in what the designer calls "large and small feather" patterns. Not only does she have you switching your focus between three sets of charts within each row, she also mixes up her references to row counts. More on the flip.
First, about those charts — it's fucking confusing trying to keep track of one pattern which repeats every 28 rows, one pattern that repeats every 8 rows, and a third which repeats every 4 rows, when she has them split among three separate charts.
Additionally, as is common with many lace patterns, the "small feather" pattern offsets by half-a-pattern after each section — but the manner in which the "small feather" pattern is charted doesn't show how that 4 stitch offset between sections stack up on each other — and as the reading charts diary illustrates, that's some pretty fucking important information.
So, I did what any intelligent person would do — I recharted it to a more usable form. I used an Excel sheet which holds all the repeats of all the patterns, showing the relationships across and in between the rows. Because the pattern is copyrighted material, I'm afraid I can't send you my charts. I can, however, email to you a formatted Excel sheet, which will include the symbols and formatting I used — you can then, using the charts from the pattern, quickly duplicate my charts (it's quite easy to do, using copy-and-paste). The charts are color-coded to separate the different patterns, and the pattern repeats, and they print out on legal sized paper. I'll also include instructions on how to line up that 4-stitch off-set makes each pattern repeat stack up properly.
But In making up my chart, the first thing I had to do was figure out how many rows the section would take. That should be pretty basic, right? Something in the instructions like "work the next section over X number of rows"? But nooooo… that would be too easy, now wouldn't it?
When I first read the instructions I was scratching my head, and I tell you, I could have kept scratching until it bled by the time I finally figured it out. The problem starts with the fact that the "small feather" pattern is an 8 row repeat. But, in the written-in-English translation of the chart, for the wrong-sized rows the designer says
Row 2 and all (WS) Rows through 16
Uhm… 16?
Then she writes the entire 28 rows of the "large feather" repeat used for the center back panel (which has been going on since the shoulder shaping section).
So now we have references to 8 rows, 16 rows, and 28 rows.
Then, at the end of the written-out version comes THIS stunningly un-illuminating paragraph:
Repeat the eight rows of the Small Feather side panels nine times MORE [uhm, is that eight, or 16, since you referred to both?] while simultaneously working the back panel for another 72 rows (ending with Row 24 of the back panel, beginning the next section with row 25).
Since I was confused by the references between 8 and 16 rows, I figured the best bet for figuring this out was to add 28 rows of back panel (because she had just written out 28 rows) to the 72 rows referred to in the blockquoted text, to come up with a total of 100 rows for this section — right?
Uhm, nope — because that doesn't leave one finishing at row 24 of the "large feather" back panel. I ended up using this bit of information:
[405 total stitches: 7 left edge sts + 177 side panel sts +37 back panel sts + 177 side panel sts + 7 right edge sts]
OK — I had an absolute number to aim for: at the end of the previous section, there were 97 left /right panel stitches, which meant I needed to add 80 stitches to each side; each pattern repeat adds 8 stitches, meaning that there needed to be a total of 80 rows for this section.
Whew.
So there you have my warnings on the "small and large feather" shawl body section.
Hope you're having fun.