As it's approaching 6:00 and no diary has been posted, I figured I might as well post what was to have been a lengthy comment as a fill-in diary.
Over the past three weeks or so, I've been knitting large & small.
I finished the shawl for my MIL, while simultaneously continuing to knit on the center block of the Unst Bridal Shawl. It was interesting swapping between the two very different types of knitting.
I had an… adventure with my MIL's shawl. I had knit about a dozen rows with my final skein of yarn when I noticed that the shade was a little bit off from the rest of the shawl.
Yes, they were all the same dye lot — but the one skein had just a touch more red in the color. So I ripped it out, and went back to the yarn shop, where I enlisted the clerks to help me make damned sure that the remaining skeins of the same lot were, indeed, the same color.
They were — my assumption is that the one skein was from a different lot which was mislabeled. However, I also decided, having ripped out a dozen rows, that the shawl was quite big enough. And, now that it's washed and blocked, I'm afraid it's too big, even at that. I don't want it so large as it gets in Betty's way while she's wearing it.
This I the 2nd time I've knit a shawl with DK weight yarn where the shawl when worn turns out to be much larger than it should be. I think the weight in combination with the lace stretches it out to much — the flat-measured gauge is much, much smaller than the gauge as a shawl is worn; indeed, my gauge swatch was a bit smaller than the gauge in the pattern. In the future, if I ever knit this type of shawl again I'll use needles a couple of sizes smaller.
As to this shawl, I'll send it off to Betty but, if it is too big for her to find useable, I'll rip it apart and knit it on size 5 or 6 needles, rather than the called-for size 8. It's a fast knit and will only take a couple of weeks.
As to the Unst, I'm 80% through with the center block.
Definitely more my type of knitting.