Sanity savers

I don’t suppose it’s any surprise I’ve been dragging my heels on my Estonian shawl project. I mean, really, who looks forward to casting on 565 stitches?

lots and lots and lots of stitches

Fortunately, the traditional cast-on is a knitted cast-on. It’s a fast cast-on, especially if you transfer new stitches from the right needle to the left as I (and, according to the books I’ve read, the Estonians) do: by pointing both needles upward as you insert the left needle into the new stitch. Keep the right needle in the stitch, and you’re already in position to create the next stitch. This means you don’t have to fumble around, reinserting the right needle… way cool when you’re casting on a gazillion stitches.

You’ll notice I cast on with two strands held together. That’s another bit of Estonian tradition: it makes the edges of their shawls a tad sturdier. I used the the outside and the inside ends of my one ball of Grignasco Prezioso. It’s not my favorite way of playing with two strands at once – sometimes, keeping the two ends of the same ball from getting tangled can be a little fiddly – but it was the only sane choice in this situation; no other option would guarantee that neither strand would run short.

Next up: knitting two plain rows before starting the lace pattern. That’ll also be a sanity saver. The idea of jumping right from the cast-on into the lace pattern gives me the heebie-jeebies. Knitting a couple rows will give me a base of regular-tension stitches into which to work the lace – so much better than trying to work double decreases into the cast-on stitches.

Knitting a couple plain rows will also give me a chance to readjust my markers. The photo shows how I used a bit of waste yarn to mark off every group of 50 stitches. Smart move: eleven groups, counted at least twice each, plus another 15 stitches, lets me know I have the target total of 565. What would’ve been a smarter move, though, would’ve been to place markers every 48 or 60 stitches – that is, every 4 or 5 repeats of my 12-stitch pattern, where they’d help me establish the lace pattern correctly. Oh, well. I’ll move the markers after the two plain rows.

So: using a fast cast-on, using two ends of the same ball, working plain rows before starting the lace, and using markers to keep tabs on the cast-on count and on the pattern repeats. That’s a slew of sanity savers. I think I’ll need ’em all… after all, this is just the first edging piece. Once it’s done, I get to do it all over again.

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