It’s been one week since we cast-on for the Mrs Watson Knit-along, and we’re having a blast! We’ve got a couple of people in the Ravelry group who are almost finished with their Mrs Watson shawls, in just one week. If you have just a little bit of time to work on this shawl every day, you can easily complete it quickly—meaning there’s still time for you to join in, as we’re working on this until March 15!
After you’ve joined your B color for the first leaf but are working the body sections with the A color, you can do one of two things with the B color. I started out trying to carry the yarn up the side of the work—you can kind of see the loops in my B color at the edge of the work in the photo above—but quickly got somewhat annoyed with having the other yarn attached. So I started cutting the B color after working the leaves, and weaving in the ends as I go.
It’s really easy to weave the ends as you go, but you’ll want to make sure that you have a long enough tail to weave in, and you may need to reinforce them after you wash and block your finished project.
To weave in the ends as you go, all you do is twist the yarns around the working yarn, trapping them along the wrong side of the work (this will be somewhat visible on the wrong side, but not any more or less than carrying the yarns up the side would be).
After this, you just work the leaf pattern as instructed, and then cut the B color yarn when you reach the edge. Simply wrap that tail around the working A color yarn to trap the yarn and keep it from dangling.
In the end, you’ll see the two tails tucked neatly along the back of the work.
How’s your Mrs Watson coming along?
I’m finished, but I didn’t ‘weave in as I go’, so now I’ve got a ton of ends. Gotta work up the courage to finish this.
Hoping you can help. I am knitting the Mrs. Watson shawl using Berroco Folio instead of the Ultra Alpaca light — my desire was for a light weight wrap for the spring/summer vs. what is intended to be a winter garment. My issue is the pattern says that the finished dimensions of the wrap are approximately 66″ x 20″. I have one last leaf pattern to go but my shawl is only 32″ long at this point (unblocked, obviously.) By my math, using Folio should result in a slightly narrower but longer shawl based on its gauge. I am using size 5 needles. What am I missing here? I’ve been looking for a picture of the finished garment so I can count rows or a graphic showing dimensions for blocking purposes. I am wracking my brain trying to figure out why my garment will be so much shorter than expected (BTW I will have 2 skeins of yarn left over so something is way off.) Will appreciate your insights and dimensions/photos of a finished garment on a flat surface.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Hi Lynne!
The finished pattern in Ultra Alpaca Light does come out to 66″ long and 20″ wide. The problem you’re encountering is that Folio is a very, very different yarn from Ultra Alpaca Light—while they’re both listed as a DK yarn, the different compositions and spins make them not completely compatible.
Here’s a photo of the finished sample in Ultra Alpaca Light for reference: http://www.ravelry.com/forum-images/AmyPalmer/2g0pi-3m277w
What I would recommend is ripping back to the end of Body Pattern 1, where you stop increasing the stitch count. The instructions say to work Rows 1-10 of Body Pat 1 and Rows 1-14 of Leaf Pat 3 three times more, but I would add on maybe three more repeats of those rows (so pretend that it says “Work Rows 1-10 of Body Pat 1 and Rows 1-14 of Leaf Pat 3 six times more.”) You should end up with 145 stitches at that point, and it would add 36 full rows of knitting. Then work the second half of the shawl as written, but working a few of the remaining Leaf Patterns an extra time.
For example, once you start working Body Pat 2, you could work Rows 1-10 of Body Pat 2 and Rows 1-16 of Leaf Pat 4 four times more (instead of three, as stated in the pattern), and then work Leaf Pat 5, Rows 1-10 of Body pat 1, then repeat Leaf Pat 5 and Body Pat 2 again, and do the same repeat for Leaf Pat 6.
If you work Body Pat 1 + Leaf Pat 3 an additional 3 times, you’ll want to “mirror” those additional 3 repeats on the second half, once you start working Body Pat 2. Does that make sense?
If you have additional questions, please email patternsupport@berroco.com. Thanks!
I’ve never been in a KAL, but think I’ll jump in this one because I love the pattern and Ultra Light Alpaca (used in a couple of sweaters).