Knitting Friday

And now for something completely different. A “true” fairy tale, as I remember it:

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess with 12 brothers. Now, as usual in these stories, there was a wicked sorcerer in the kingdom and he put an evil spell on the princes and turned them all into swans. The swans promptly flew away and weren’t seen again.

Their human sister was distraught and searched for a wise man (or woman) to find out how to turn her brothers back into humans. She was told that she must knit 12 sweaters for them.

That’s easy, she thought. But the wise person added: During the time she knitted, she must never speak.

So the princess began her silent task and all went along well until a king from another kingdom saw her and wanted her for his wife.

The princess married the king but she remained silent and kept on knitting.

She may have been able to finish the sweaters if not for the wicked sorcerer. Yes, he was still around. He convinced the king that this wife was a witch and unfortunately, since the princess had to remain silent, she could not refute this charge.

So the silent princess was put on trial, convicted of being a witch, and sentenced to burn at the stake.

As the tumbrel led the princess to her doom, she was just finishing the sleeve on the last sweater. Suddenly, 12 beautiful swans appeared in the sky and flew down in front of the princess.

Quickly, she threw the 12 sweaters at the swans and instantly all of them turned back into handsome princes; except that the youngest prince got the half finished sleeve and had to live with a swan’s arm.

With the sweaters finished, the princess told her story; the sorcerer was punished and the king and his queen lived happily ever after.

Ok, I know this sounds like a lame entry for Knitting Friday but it is about knitting and the dilemma of the half finished sleeves hit home for me this week.

The honeycomb reversible shawl, which was the pattern last Friday, got finished this week. Well, it really didn’t get finished since I ended up with 40 stitches on the needles and the tiniest ball of wool left for finishing. There was no way I was going to have enough yarn left.

I was as frustrated as the knitting princess when she came to the last sleeve. I worked out all sorts of work-arounds and finally one almost worked. I made a drastic decrease in every other stitch for one row and then two K2togs at the beginning and end of each decrease row until I was comfortable that I would have enough yarn. (Remember, I told you that you could decrease more rapidly than instructed towards the end? Well, apparently not as rapidly as I did.)

I finished with one corner as an acute angle; the other three were correctly right angles. It didn’t look that good, but the yarn was dark and the pattern on US15 needles was very airy.

I always felt bad for the youngest prince and could imagine him beating his sister with his swan arm, saying: Why didn’t you knit faster?

Speed wouldn’t have helped me but a trip to Michael’s did. It had been months since I bought that dye lot but they had one skein left which was only off by the last number in a multi-numbered code. I even had a 40% off coupon. Happy days.

Last night, I ripped the shawl back to where I started my rapid decrease, proceeded to knit it correctly and even made a crab stitch edging.

Lessons I have learned:

1. If you are knitting an diagonal rectangular shawl you have to weigh (or mark) your yarn. When you come to the half way point you must be at least halfway through the shawl. No exceptions. If you don’t or can’t weigh or mark; don’t make a diagonal shawl. (Except if you follow #3.)
   
2. 440 yards, even on US15, will not make a 25” x 65” shawl in double knitting weight. You need at least 500 yards.
   
3. Buy that extra skein.
4. The honeycomb reversible shawl pattern worked up very nicely. After I bought enough yarn, I didn't have the fudge the decreases to prevent wonkiness. It's is very light and airy and I'm going to make another with smaller needles.
   
5. And finally, I really don’t see how the components of that fairy tale mesh. OK, it makes it alliterate: silence, swans, sweaters. But why would you knit sweaters to stop a curse? And why swans? And finally, did that youngest brother spend a lifetime in therapy and did his brother-in-law, the king, pay for it?
   

Next Knitting Friday: The brown yarn is a sweater. Pattern to follow.

Happy knitting.