Back in May Susan Crawford posted an image on Instagram of a Shetland shawl recipe from the mid 1880s. It has a two row repeat for the central section to be knitted until ‘enough is done’ at which point you cast off and then you do the edging for which ‘any fancy stitch will do’. At the time I cast on in an undyed yarn and tried it out. It soon dawned on me that a square based on the 302 sts it said to cast on would be huge and quite an undertaking, perhaps beyond the amount of undyed yarn I had. This has since been frogged pending casting on with fewer stitches and starting again. However, I really liked the fabric the repeat produced and decided that given it worked up fully reversible, it would be good for an infinity cowl.
With planning early for Christmas in mind I cast one on for my sister-in-law in a Solstice Yarns wool nylon blend in the Don’t Look Now colourway that I thought she would like. I had 82g left of a full skein and wanted to make the most of the yarn. I did a few garter stitch ridges at the beginning, weighed my yarn, did a pattern repeat and weighed my yarn again. This meant that I could keep knitting repeats until I just has enough for a full repeat, the same number of rounds in the garter edging and the cast off. It worked out pretty well, even using a larger needle to cast off so it wouldn’t pull in at all, I just made it with about 40cm of yarn left to spare, and had my first Christmas Gift of the year completed by June 8th. Despite the planning, the good fortune in my game of yarn chicken has to be a positive omen, right? This is how it tuned out:
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I had thought about making another one given how quick and easy it was, I haven’t yet, but who knows…