I’m finally getting close on this one. I have 19 rows left. The pattern has 344 rows, the last row has 693 stitches to bind off. The last section of lace has lace stitches (increases and decreases) on every row, not just the public side rows. So no easy purl rows to count stitches and make sure I haven’t screwed up.
Which I have, plenty of times with this one. Mostly I’ve caught them a few repeats later, and can either go back and fix them, or fix them on the return row. A few times I’ve had to go back a whole row, but at this point, I’d avoid that like the plague, given the number of stitches in each row. It’s taking me close to an hour to knit a row.
The yarn for this would cost over $60 plus shipping to replace. The pattern costs around $7. I have probably $30 worth of supplies that I’ve used with this, including needles, markers, scissors, etc. Of course those will be used again, over and over.
I have no idea how many hours I’ve put into this shawl. People ask me that all the time—“how long does it take you to make that?” Since I always have multiple things going on at once in the knitting sphere, it’s impossible to say. But I will say that if I got minimum wage for the hours to make this, the cost would be astronomical.
Sure, I can go buy a nice shawl for $70-80. But it wouldn’t ever be like this one, which will be one of a kind, made carefully by my own hands.
Someone remind me of that when I’m complaining about the 693-stitch bind off.
Which will be at least 20 knitting hours from now.
That color is just gorgeous. Can’t wait to see it blocked, and you modeling it for us. It’s going to be stunning!