Decision point

No, this has nothing to do with my summer cardigan plans. I've been working on my Pi Are Squared shawl again (last seen here).


Doesn't look much different, does it? But I've finished the center pattern band, with zigzags to match the ones at the beginning of the faggoting. I then did my last increase, and went on to use print o' the wave. I've never knitted this pattern before, probably because I prefer garter-based patterns, and I gave it a lot of thought before I chose it. Using a stockinette based pattern gives the shawl a right & wrong side, and I wasn't sure that was a good idea.

One of the reasons I chose it is that Sharon Miller gives a beautiful coordinating edging, and thought the patterns would look really pretty together. I'm very happy with the way the print o' the wave looks on the shawl, but ...... I just don't think I can do the edging. In fact, I have no idea what I was thinking last summer when I decided on it. The edging runs up the sides of the front of the shawl, and sometimes those might be flat, and other times they will probably be folded over. I need a reversible edging. Phooey. Maybe I'll make a nice triangular shawl one of these days so I can use the two patterns together.

But that's not really the decision that needs to be made -- I've made it, or at least I've decided not to use the matching edging. No, my current decision is prompted by this:


17 grams of yarn: 10+ in one color, 6+ in the other. It takes about 4 grams to do a pair of rows -- I'm alternating the balls every two rows. So I can do 3 more pairs, or 6 more rows, before I'm out of these original yarns. I'd like to do two more repeats of print o' the wave (24 rows total, or about 50 g. of yarn) plus, of course, the miles of edging.

I have more purple yarn, but it isn't an exact match. (This yarn, which is J & S Shetland laceweight from the mid 80's, started out various gaudy baby colors. I overdyed it all in the same dyepot, but the purple is affected by the original color. My main yarns were originally baby blue and a sort of violent lavender, if I remember correctly.) I have 130 g. of assorted purples, which look pretty close but will stripe. If I used 50 g. to do another two repeats, I'd have 80 g. for the edging, which really doesn't seem like enough.

I also have about 50 g. of gray overdyed purple. I might do a stripe of this and then switch to the mismatched purples. But it is quite dark; I wonder if it would make the shawl too somber.

My other options all involve dyeing. I have about 50 g. of the lavender, 30 g. of the gray, and 130 g. of white. Of course, I couldn't match the yarn I'm using now, but I could probably come close (especially if I can find my notes on the original dye job).

So what would you do? Dark stripe across the bottom, followed by more purples? Or just switch purples?

Swatches to come. I need to find an edging, and I need to know how much yarn it takes, so I might as well fool around with colors, too.