More Ripping Back

More progress, then ripping of the Cedar Leaf Shawlette. I managed, with the help of markers, to finish the main body of the shawl. This time, I placed a marker just after each wrap when I worked it, then I wouldn't go past it, and rework it. This worked, and it was much easier to just knit, without having to look down at my work every few minutes to see if I was at the next wrap yet.

I started the leaves around the border, and actually did 13 out of 30. But something was niggling at me. The pattern has you join the stitch of the border to the body, then knit it again on the next row. But it was looking kind of untidy. I checked the picture in the pattern, and mine did look the same as the detail picture, so I was obviously doing it right, but it didn't look right. I tried ignoring it, but with each leaf it bothered me more, and I eventually figured I wouldn't be happy if I just left it.

So I did an experiment, and decided to slip the first stitch on the RS rows for one leaf to see how it looked.



Forgive the crappy picture, it was half past two in the morning, only electric light, and photoshop can only brighten it so much. The colour is actually a rich dark green, less gray than in the photo.

But you can see how on the last leaf, it looks much tidier where the leaf joins the body. That row of knit stitches lies much straighter, and doesn't wibble about so much. The stitches are less squashed together too, and just lie much nicer against the body.

So I ripped out all of my leaves and started again. This time I wasn't so bothered by ripping out though, because it was a choice that I'd made, and not a huge mistake. And those leaves are really fun to knit!

I'll be much happier with the shawlette now. I've knit three of the leaves already, and it's looking much, much nicer. I don't finish every leaf and think how wonky it's looking, which is very nice :)