Blocking measurements

Well everything was dry last night when I went to bed so I unpinned the shawl and the swatch to let them assume their 'everyday' shape overnight.

The faroese swatch (on US 5's) measured in at 4.75 sts/in and 9 rows/in; the pattern calls for a gauge of 5 sts/in and 8 rows/in. That means the whole thing will be a little bit smaller than the pattern. This works out well for me because my grandma is much smaller than me and I thought the shawl was a bit on the large side for her.

The Lily of the Valley Shawl disappointed me :( I measured the entire width at 21 in, which is fine I don't have any problems with that. However, 3 repeats of the pattern is almost 10 in. That is an average of 3.33 in/repeat. Doing the math I will have to perform 17 repeats, compared to the 10 that the pattern calls for. This just brings me back to the original problem I had with the rows/in being so much higher than the pattern needed. I changed the needle size by 3 or 4 (I think) and when I did the first gauge measurement (on the swatch) it came out that I would only need to add 2 repeats. I think the shawl looks gorgeous and I'll still finish it; I'm just upset that, somewhere, something lied to me!

I (and most knitters, I would imagine) only do swatches because it's supposed to give you an idea of the finished dimensions of the garment. If this keeps happening you can bet I'll just give up swatching all together.

PS- Last night while the swatches were drying I worked on the one row scarf (in that unknown brown fiber) at a '3 ply' meaning 3 strands knitted together. I think I'm about half way and will have pictures at a later date.