Lothian update

Even though there is only a tiny bit left to do, my skirt still isn't finished - for some reason it takes very little for my sewjo to go into hiding at present. I have been knitting, though, and have got far enough with my Lothian shawl to merit a progress report.

The first part is just rows of garter stitch with a yarn over stitch increase at each end of the row. I knitted it on straight needles for as long as I could, but at 300 stitches I had to swap to a circular needle.

No more stitches could be fitted on the needle!

For this section, it is the yarn which provides the effect. I love the way that the occasional copper stitch appears amid the yellows and greys.

Pop!

As I reached the point where the first set of five contrast 'routes' is added, I had to think about the order in which I wanted to use the colours. Along with the main yarn, I had bought a pack of four Easyknits mini skeins from Kathy's Knits in Edinburgh, and also a single skein of Ducky Darlings 4ply at the pop-up wool show in Port Sunlight. Initially I was going to use the variegated skeins in colour order, with the plain yarn in the centre.

Plan A

This didn't feel as though it provided a lot of contrast between the routes, however. To mix things up a bit, I bought a skein of yellow from Strictly Hand Dyed, and experimented with the order of the colours until I was happy.

The final arrangement

And then, it was time to knit the first route!

We have contrast

Obviously, there is always a bit of a risk with variegated yarns, and the dark grey stitch in the 'terminus' rather dents the shape. But I don't think that will matter so much once I have knitted more of the design.

The 'terminus', with a dent at the top

Right now, it doesn't look that big. But there are another 14 colour changes to add, plus I'm aware of how much my Dahlia shawl grew when it was blocked.

141 rows knitted

Of course, now that I’m on to the colours section I’m keen to do more. It may be a while before that skirt gets hemmed!