Swatches, shawls & sinuses

Having a bad allergy day gives me the opportunity to actually blog today. So, of course, the first time I tried to log on to blogger, it wasn't having it. Now it seems to be semi-stable but I'll be copying to the clipboard just in case.

Like many a knitter, I have stash seduction delivered to my mailbox once a month courtesy of the folks at elann and the samples subscription. I've actually been pretty good about not giving into the allure of elann but this month, a sample got me to swatch.

One of my long languishing projects is the Polynesian popoki shawl. The shawl is my adaptation of Joan Shrouder's Kilimanjaro Kat shawl done as a triangle rather than a square, in black rayon ribbon rather than either of the K1C2 yarns ad on 3.75 mm needles and with a totally different final edging -- essentially the same shawl but totally different.

The rayon ribbon is evil stuff. Not only does it snag on everything it plays escape artist every chance it gets. But the stuff is gorgeous and has a great hand.
My biggest problem with the shawl besides getting over confident and omitting lifelines came about when I compared how the picked up stitches on it looked compared to Swarmy. It was not a good comparison and knowing that frogging all the way back was the next step it has been in timeout for rather a long time now.

I'm not actually convinced that this material will ever yield an attractive line of picked up stitches so I've been considering alternative fibres for the project. That's when the elann's linen arrived.

It became available at 9am this morning and I still haven't made up my mind. It is described as Aran weight with 17 st/4 inches with a 4.5 mm needle. Well, my swatch is 21 st/3.5 inches on a 3.75 mm needle and I could probably go down a needle size to tighten up the lace.


The stuff is sort of fuzzy so I wonder about shedding. Still haven't made up my mind.