Halfway.
This is the Labyrinth Lace Shawl (Ravelry link) by Evelyn Clark. It’s a garter stitch shawl, knit point to point, with two increases every other row until you reach the widest — the halfway — point in the shawl and then you decrease two stitches every other row.
I’m a little more than halfway finished and it feels like the second half is zooming along. It’s all in my head because the rows aren’t getting that much shorter that quickly, but it keeps me working on it. It’s not a difficult knit. Each right side row is different but the body of the shawl is an intuitive (k2tog, yo, k6), followed by (yo, ssk, k6), so there’s only a small border section on each right side row where you have to refer to the charts. Wrong side rows are straight garter so you can just zone out.
What freaks people out are the 16 pages of written instructions and the long charts. I’ve tucked the written instructions away and haven’t looked at them. Can’t imagine trying to knit this using words instead of charts, it must be tremendously slow. There are no repeats so every stitch has to be charted.
I copied the charts onto legal-sized paper and then cut and taped them together. I use highlighter tape to keep track of the correct row. Since there are fairly long stretches of knit stitches, I also count the plain stitches and write in the numbers on the pattern ahead of time. Then a quick glance tells me that after the (yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo) are 11 knit stitches and I don’t miss a beat. If I didn’t have to move the highlighter tape each row, this would really be a fast knit.
I’ve hardly had to rip back since the slanting lines of yarn overs is an immediate alert if the stitch count is off.
The only mehh factor is that I’m knitting this with fingering weight yarn. My favorite shawls (Mountain Pines, Hanami) are knit with lace weight or finer. There’s something about the combination of big needles (relatively speaking) and thin yarn that appeals to me. I like that lace weight knitting looks like holes and thread while it’s on the needles, but wet it and stretch it and it turns into a thing of intricate pattern and beauty. It’s gossamer knitting.
Beautiful! Evelyn Clark has some wonderful patterns and you seem to have found a good way to keep track. I can’t wait to see it done.
That is going to be lovely. I can’t wait until we get to see the finished shawl.
It’s going to be beautiful! I’ve been feeling the call of lace lately!
Beautiful! Love the color, and can’t wait to see it finished.
Very cool! That is one honkin’ chart, but you’ve worked out a way to use it efficiently.
Wow! I’m impressed with the pattern chart. And not altogether un-freaked-out! Good luck – it looks like it’s going to be lovely.