More swatching

When will I ever learn? Needless to say, describing fixing the damaged cushions at my local community café as a "'little' job" turned out to be tempting fate. More damaged cushions have sprung up like mushrooms, and despite the kind help of one of the other regular attendees, there are still several to do. Getting on with the toile has been shelved until this is done, but I did find time for a bit of knitting.

I knitted up a second swatch for my 1915 shawl, this time using 4.5mm needles, which equate to U.S. size 7/old UK size 7. Unsurprisingly, when blocked it came out larger than the swatch knitted on 4mm needles.

4mm swatch on top of 4.5mm one

It also felt, and looked, like a far more open knit. As the pattern states that "Closeness of texture is the feature which makes this a generally useful shawl", I decided to stick with the 4mm/size 8 needles specified in the pattern, even though the swatch produced felt rather chunky.

Then I had the genius idea of trying to re-block the 4mm swatch to the gauge listed on the yarn label. (I wasn't at all at my brightest when I first blocked it, so never thought about this). I marked out a 22 stitch and 28 row section, calculated the likely dimensions of a 33 stitch and 57 row swatch blocked to gauge as a belt-and-braces approach, and set to work.

Slightly different shape!

Blocked to the right size, the swatch has a thickness far more suitable for a shawl. It also retained its size and shape after handling, so I am confident that this is the right degree of blocking.

Once I knew this, I could consider the dimensions of the completed shawl. No size information is provided in the pattern, except that it should be knitted until it is 50" long, and then a further 45 rows knitted. This would equate to 56½"/ 144cm, which feels like a reasonable length for a shawl. However, the pattern is 219 stitches wide. In the gauge for my wool, this is 40"/100cm. Given that I am 64" tall, a shawl which would cover almost ⅔ of my height seems a bit excessive.

I folded a remnant to 100 X 144 cm to get an idea of the size. Obviously, fabric drapes differently from knitting, but it confirmed that this would be a big shawl.

So much fabric

It almost reaches down to my knees

Something that size was also going to use a lot of wool, and be quite heavy as a result. I wondered if the Capstan yarn suggested for the pattern was thinner than my DK wool, and so would produce a narrower shawl from 219 stitches. Combing through the booklet which contains the pattern for any clues, I found a section on the different Beehive products. Capstan was listed in the section of Soft Knitting wools. These were described as 4-ply yarns which are more tightly twisted than Fingerings, and of the four types available, Capstan was "slightly thicker". Double Knitting was a separate section, and described as "a thick 4-ply Fingering".

Unless I come across a skein of teens era Capstan yarn for sale somewhere, I guess I will never know for certain. But given that old yarns are generally regarded as being thicker than the modern equivalents (Lister Lee DK is described as more of an Aran weight, for example) and also the needle size of 4mm, modern DK still seems like the best choice for the project. So I will simply work out what width I want the shawl to be, and cast on accordingly.

Even so, it's still going to use a fair amount of yarn - more than will fit in one of the repurposed totes I use for my shawl projects. The clear-out which brought the Dress of Frump back to my attention also produced a cute but long-forgotten length of craft cotton, and today as a break from the endless cushion repairs I made a new (lined, of course) project bag for the occasion.

Complete with wool

Another metre used

Hopefully I will be able to finally start on the shawl soon.