Anecdotal Knitting

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First of all, the yarn was all left overs from other projects.
Main color in garter stitch border – Knit Picks Elegance Redwood
All contrast colors – Skye Tweed Classic Elite 1215 Spruce Forest, 1272 Upland Green, 1253 Tapestry (Burgandy), 1285 MacCalister Orange, Knit Picks Merino Style Nutmeg, Knit Picks Andean Silk Mustard.

I knit this on Knit Picks Options #6 needles, the gauge average is 5 st/in and 7 rows/in.
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The shawlette weighs 215g, the average yardage per 50 grams of all the yarns is 110 yards so there is approximately 475 yards of worsted weight yarn in the shawlette. (If I were to do this over again I would have used a yarn like Knit Picks Wool of the Andes to match with the Skye Tweed, the Elegance is a bit delicate for the borders, though it is very soft next to the neck.)
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All the peeries came from Alice Starmore’s Book of Fairisle Knitting.
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My changes to the pattern:
All yarn over increases were changed to my favorite increase which is to lift the bump below the knit stitch that you want to increase into, pull a loop through the bump then knit into the stitch – one stitch increase. (See Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top)
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There are ten increase lines from the neck to the widest part of the shoulder. Then the center eight increases stop and only the two for the fronts – one on each side of the front remain to the hem.
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There are only a few one color rows, so I made increases in pattern. I like the way the peeries were slightly distorted along the increase lines. For pattern continuity, I played around with the pattern, deciding in each case whether to skip or add specific colors of stitches, whatever looked right to make the pattern look like it was supposed to. For instance the first pattern at the neck is a four row one stitch checkerboard. Along the increase lines there are two stitches in one color instead of one, but the pattern is continuous and the disruption is minor.
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The Shawlette was knit flat, which means color work on purl rows. I knit this early enough in my knitting experience that I didn’t know that was not exactly standard practice. I had knit an Intarsia project before this, and that is knit flat, so I just drew the obvious conclusion…
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Sandi’s Comfort Shawl version of the pattern starts off with the neckband. Here I changed the seed stitch borders to garter stitch. I converted her stitches into inches per her gauge and applied it to my gauge. So she starts with 52 rows so that you can pick up 26 stitches plus the original 7 that were cast on and the 7 that you unzip = 40 sts. At her gauge of 4.5 st/in that equals 8.8″. Then I multiply 8.8″ by my gauge 5 st/in to get 44 sts. That means I have 7 stitches from the cast on, I picked up 30 sts. and another 7 sts. from the unzip = 44. Increase into every non border stitch in the next row and get 61 sts + 14 for the borders = 75. I placed my markers for increases using the same logic, at:
7 m 9 m 9 m 25 m 9 m 9 m 7
The increases are made to the right of the first marker, on both sides of the next four markers and to the left of the last marker = 10 increases per row. The increases continue in the manner for 5″, or to when your shoulder starts to slope down. Then drop the middle eight increases and only increase at the borders to the hem. I knit garter stitch rows at the hem to match the borders.
That is it.