Kiri KAL

The project using the Aarlan angora from the Knitting and Stitching show has moved out of the "To be knit" list and onto my needles. I had just about given up on finding a mini sweater or cardigan pattern which would only take five balls of dk weight yarn and when Lara emailed to say that she, Katie and Abby were thinking of starting a Kiri KAL at our knitting group I decided that this was just this thing for me and my angora. Progress has been pretty speedy. There are only five lines of chart to memorize for the bulk of the shawl and it's a very easy lace pattern to "read"--by which I mean that you can easily see what the pattern is doing in the yarn so you are able to know what you should be knitting without referring to the chart. Eunny Jang talks about this somewhere but I can't find the precise link. Anyway, it speeds things up immeasurably unless you go horribly wrong. So far all errors have been spotted either on the same row or on the next pattern row and have been fixable (touch wood).

Shawl after first ball of yarn had been finished

At this point the shawl was measuring 26 inches across the neck edge so I think it will end up as 52 inches across when finished (maybe a little more after blocking). I worked this out by imagining that I could knit a similar sized triangle with each of the other three balls which are earmarked for the body of the shawl (the fifth is reserved for the edging). These four triangles when fitted together would create a larger isosceles triangle with a base edge double the length of that of each of the three smaller triangle. See geometry is useul after all. Anyhow this should make a shawl which is almost the length of my arm span and which should drape down to the waist when on my shoulders.

Leaf detail from the Kiri shawl

Shawl after one and a half balls (neck edge now 34 inches)