The pattern for the SSMO calls for worsted weight yarn, which seems a little much for me.  So I purchased a fingering weight yarn – a much better yarn for this shawl (my Mom at least knows that it is going to be a shawl, she just doesn’t know what it will look like – that’s the secret part).  Just to get a better guess as to the modifications that I’m going to need to make on account of the yarn substitution, I swatched with a worsted and now I’m in the process of swatching with the fingering weight.  HUGE difference.  I’m working with a size 4 needles with the fingering weight and I think I either need to use wooden needles (to prevent loops from falling off) or to go up a size so that I can knit tighter.

The first part of the pattern is a series of repeats and I’m going to swatch 2 full repeats and then bind off and take measurements.  Hopefully I was smart in purchasing 3 skeins of this yarn instead of 2 and should have p-l-e-n-t-y of yarn to adjust for yarn weight and the length of the shawl.

I am really surprized as how quickly the swatch process is going.  I did the worsted swatch in about 1.5 hours and about 2 for the fingering swatch.  If the pattern is going to seriously be this easy to master then I just might (***just ***might***) be able to make one for little sis too in time for Christams.  Won’t that be special?

So I started making a shawl for my Mom 2 summers ago.  It is nearly 3 feet long, which is nearing the home stretch, but it has one major flaw.  I need to frog about 20 rows and it is lace work and I don’t know how to do that.  I can’t knit backwards for 20 rows, so I’m rather at am impasse.  It has been sitting patiently for about a year now for me to figure out what to do with it.  But guess what?  I’ve figured it out.

I’m going to forget about it.

Yup, you read that correctly, I’ve decided NOT to finish the White Princess shawl.  Ever.

Because….

I found the PERFECT yarn this weekend and I’ve decided to make a different shawl for my Mom.  And then I’m going to find the perfect yarn for my Sister and make her the same shawl.  And…then I’m going to find the perfect yarn for me and make me the same shawl.  Three.  I’m going to make the three of us the same shawl.

So the ultra super secret part of this is that I don’t want my Mom to see it, and since she at times reads this blog (I would say she reads it every day, but I can’t, don’t know why) I can’t say too much about it.  But it is that shawl by the American designer that lives in France and the name of the shawl starts with a “C” and is pronounced in a very strange, french way.  I think you know which one I mean. 

I’ve wound the first skein and am ready to swatch…hopefully some time this week I can get to a store to get the right needles.